While on a Twitter rant this morning, and engaging in some healthy back and forth, a thought came across my mind that I couldn't cut down to just 140 characters, so I thought I'd share.

I've been a pretty staunch defender of Marrone through this process. As sad as I am to see him go, I could definitely understand why he would leave and I do not hold it against him at all. This is a great opportunity for him and he took it. I think even if him leaving will set us a step or two back, he's already taken us at least 10 steps forward since he took over, so the net is ultimately a positive by a lot.

But the Nate Hackett news really bugged me last night and especially this morning after I had some time to think about it.

This is the real world. Doug has a job to do at Buffalo and he needs to hire the best people to help him earn his large salary and please a new fanbase (whether or not this will do that is entirely up for debate). A smart football coach should be selfish and hire the best people regardless of where they come from. He shouldn't worry about what will happen to Syracuse. He should worry about what will happen to Buffalo.

I totally get this. But that just means we don't have to care about him as much either.

We can be selfish too. If he's going to steal our coaches, we have a right to be angry about it. And we have a right to say he doesn't care as much about Syracuse as he claims to. Again, that's fine, but he can't claim he would do "anything" for SU anymore. That's simply not true.

If Marrone wanted to preserve a legacy as Syracuse's savior, he shouldn't have done this. He chose to worry more about his legacy at Buffalo. I respect this decision. And now I turn my back on him. I do not wish him ill, but I am not sure I wish him endless Super Bowl success either. I'm mostly ambivalent to him at this point. He's just some NFL coach now.

I will always appreciate what Doug Marrone did from 2009-2012. He helped bring Syracuse back to relevancy. But that's over now. We will move on. He will move on. And that will be the end of it.