Enter Doug Marrone's Standpoint Of Excitement

I'm not entirely sure what a "standpoint of excitement is." I assume it looks like this. Even if not, Doug Marrone is excited for the Syracuse Orange to join the ACC and he's not afraid to say it, from the standpoint of talking.

"For us it’s a standpoint of excitement. It’s a great introduction and looking forward to what the future holds for us. My focus is to make sure that our football team, we need to win football games. It just changes, you put yourself in that mode but it’s very exciting to see where we’re going."

That was Doug speaking from the ACC spring meetings, which kicked off yesterday. He and DOC Gross were on hand since they're not allowed to hang out with the Big East kids anymore (but they can't leave either...).

Gross spoke with ESPN's Andrea Adelson at length about the conference move and the possibility the Orange will be ACC-bound following this season.

"We’re obviously going to keep all our options open, but I’m still confident that there’s a lot of bright people, sophisticated people that can get together and solve this in a quick fashion."

Sophisticated people? I've seen the Big East brass and I have yet to notice a monocle and top hat amongst their ranks, so, bully to that.

(By the way, anyone else notice the reverse psychology at play there? Big East folks are "bright" and "sophisticated" so surely they'll decide to let us go because if they don't, then they must be unsophisticated mongrels. GENIUS!)

"We’ve been collegial throughout this process."

That's what I've been saying!

"It seems they’ve gotten to a point where they have their teams solidified and now it’s time for us to move out of the way. One, they need to move on with their life and set up whatever TV contracts and rights. Two, we need to move on with our life as an institution as well. We still believe we can sit down and negotiate and talk about a graceful departure."

As for Pittsburgh taking matters into legal hands...

"I’m not surprised because I think there’s an urgency. I think folks have shown patience and we’re getting to a point where we really need to move forward. There should be some urgency with this because folks have been patient. I understand."

In other words, we'll keep smiling until you give us a reason to stop smiling, Big East.