Here's the good news. The Syracuse Orange coaching staff is doing a great job.
Here's the bad news. Everyone noticed.
And so, Syracuse football coaches are ending up on short lists, long lists and just about any list for vacant coaching jobs out there. It's our job to sort fact from fiction and decide which rumors to pee ourselves over and which ones to laugh off.
We start with the most plausible. That being defensive coordinator Scott Shafer and his rumored interview for the head coaching position with Western Michigan. It was mentioned by ESPN (as a rumor) as well as Coachingsearch.com(take that as you like). It would make sense since Shafer made his mark at WMU before moving on to the big boys. Here's how ESPN summed it up.
"Shafer has a few high profile stops after leaving Western Michigan. He has been the defensive coordinator at Michigan, Stanford and Syracuse. But it’s his experience coaching in the MAC for both Western Michigan and its primary rival that make him a top candidate for the position"
In other words, if he was going to jump ship, this would be the job to do it. The scary part is that there's a good chance Tim Daoust and Steve Morrison would follow him, or at least one of them would to become his DC. Shafer leaving would have a serious trickle-down effect.
The less-plausible but more-interesting rumor is this Doug Marrone-to-Wisconsin one. I saw a bunch of Wisky folks throw Doug's name on a shortlist the other day along with Vandy's James Franklin and a few other high profile candidates. I didn't really think much of it. I stand firm in the belief that it's Syracuse or the NFL for Doug and nothing in between.
Then someone brought to my attention this flightracker, which shows a private jet that flew from Syracuse to Madison, WI Tuesday morning as well as the one that flew from Madison to Syracuse Wednesday evening. For all I know this is a common occurrence. It's probably looking for something that just isn't there. (I had multiple people tell me Doug was sighted in Syracuse and on recruiting trips this week so it might just be that). (Someone else mentioned that Wisconsin is looking for a chancellor, so it could have been Cantor, too) (Enough of these now).
Finally, remember Jimm Brumbaugh? Looks like he's gonna land on his feet at Kentucky as their new D-line coach.