Landing right smack dab in the middle of ESPN's Ladder 119, a ranking of every college football team in the past ten seasons, is the Syracuse Orange. Thank God we can still include the McNabb Era in this...barely. With a 61-59 record and 3 conference titles (shared titles be damned!), it actually doesn't look all that bad.
Man, has this program gone downhill. People might not have loved Paul Pasqualoni and his droll manner, but the Orange won big and graduated a lot of their players. The program is still very well-represented in the NFL, where the Pro Bowl usually has a bunch of high-profile SU guys (Donovan McNabb, Marvin Harrison and Dwight Freeney). But now Syracuse stinks, having gone 1-13 in the Big East over the past two seasons, and it doesn't look as though things are going to perk up much in the near future.
Man, has this program gone downhill. People might not have loved Paul Pasqualoni and his droll manner, but the Orange won big and graduated a lot of their players. The program is still very well-represented in the NFL, where the Pro Bowl usually has a bunch of high-profile SU guys (Donovan McNabb, Marvin Harrison and Dwight Freeney). But now Syracuse stinks, having gone 1-13 in the Big East over the past two seasons, and it doesn't look as though things are going to perk up much in the near future.