I've been a little weary of Don McPherson ever since he said that Syracuse fans needed to accept that the football program was never going to be better than a perennial 7-5/8-4 program. It smacked of defeatism and truthfully is a load of BS.
McPherson's been out in front of the media again the last couple days promoting his show on MSG, McPherson has been commenting on conference expansion, the state of college athletics and Syracuse sports. And I gotta say, I'm officially back on the Donny Mc Bandwagon. Why? The dude speaks common sense. He just seems to get it.
On the inevitable raid from the Big Ten:
It’s certainly going to get raided by the Big Ten at some point. The Big Ten wants to get into the Northeast market, so they’re going to try to go after Rutgers or Syracuse ...
What can the Big East do to survive?
I think ultimately what the Big East needs to do is fight to get Boston College back. I doubt Penn State would ever come back, but Penn State is the logical addition. It needs to really make a push to go after four or five high-caliber football schools to strengthen the conference.
On Jim Boeheim's claim that basketball drives NCAA revenue and why that's not the point:
...if you look at the money that the Big Ten is generating with their TV network, that’s not driven by the NCAA. That’s all Big Ten money.
Should Syracuse jump to the Big Ten if invited?
’ll tell you what, it would instantly put an additional $10 to $15 million in their budget. How do you turn that down?
On how the Syracuse football team is looking:
"The team is certainly going to get better, maybe not as quickly as everyone would like, but I think they’re going to get better. Not just better, but better in a sustainable way. And that’s the key."
On whether or not fans are able to keep perspective:
"We have short memories. A couple of good wins and people will realize things are going in the right direction."
"I tell people all the time, that in 1986 we were 5-6. Not a lot of people remember that the year before we went undefeated that we had a losing season."
The man makes points.
Speaking of, in searching around for McPherson's comments, I came across this quote from the day before Doug Marrone was hired. It's Don talking about what kind of a coach he'd like to see take over Syracuse.
"I'd like to see someone that knows the backyards. I'd like to see someone with a tremendous personality, who can go out there and recruit. And I'd like to see someone that has a tremendous reputation in college football because he's going to have to build a staff."
Man, he's good.