Doug Marrone Will Cook You Dinner, Turn A Double-Play & Let You Know You Can't Play Baseball

Last week Doug Marrone stopped by Quick Bites with Mike Quick and Jimmy Cavallo on MSG Varsity and showed off his singing voice and acting chops. Could he top himself with the second part of that appearance?

On cooking:

"I'm the cook in my family. Lotta garlic. And you gotta slice it with a razor so it just melts in there. You don't want the chunks."

On recruiting New Jersey:

"We're doing a better job in New Jersey, for a lot of reasons. I think that, you know, Coach Schiano did such a good job there. And obviously there's a transition going on. They've kept it in-house. But it still leaves a little bit of an opportunity to get in there. And plus...same coaches, same area, just keep building that relationship."

On how the move to the ACC has helped in recruiting:

"The move to the ACC has helped us. It's opened up a little bit more areas down south where, I'm not gonna come out and say they're better players down there, but there's more players down there. And what's helped us is that we have direct flights that go to Charlotte. That go to Atlanta. And my background, having coached at Georgia Tech and Georgia, and then Greg Adkins, our recruiting coordinator, was at Georgia...we have a lot of coaches down there. So this year we're speaking at the coaches clinic down there, the GACA, which is a big deal. You know, we were able to get three kids this year. And Syracuse, when you look at the history, has always had one or two kids from Georgia that have all played and done well. So, I think that's helped us in the area, especially in the ACC now, you know, you can come to Syracuse in a 250 mile radius and I guarantee you're gonna see eight or nine games a year."

On leaving the Big East for the ACC:

"I'm a traditionalist. I get this question a lot...conference realignment. For me, the dream was given up a long time ago. You know, when I played at Syracuse, we were playing Penn State, we were playing Pitt and Maryland. We were playing West Virginia, you know. I just remember that being Northeastern football. And if I left a couple other schools out, I apologize. But, that's what I always wanted in my heart, when I was a kid growing up, because I always believed we were just as good as everyone else. We might not have as many players in our areas, because our kids played basketball, lacrosse...and baseball. So we played a lot of sports and we weren't honed in just to one sport. So, for me, I always took a lot of pride in being from the Northeast and being a football player and representing that part of the country."

Could he have played baseball for Syracuse?

"If they had a team, hell yeah I can. I pride myself, not being a very good baseball coach, but I pride myself on being able to play."

On Bobby Bonilla (who went to school with Doug).

"He was an unbelievable...unbelievable high school athlete. I mean, he could have played football. There's no doubt about it. He's about my size. He's a big, big kid now. That's why when I go out on the road recruiting and a kid's parents say 'Coach, I don't know if my son's gonna play baseball or play football,' I go 'Well let me see him play baseball.' And I see him play baseball and I go 'Nah. I played with a guy who went to the Major League. I know exactly how good he is.'"

On conference realignment:

"The one thing I was concerned about with conference realignment was, you know, you have to be careful who you associate yourself with within a conference. Obviously, I'm a Syracuse graduate, so I'm talking right now in terms not as a head coach but as a graduate. And just for myself, not for anybody else...I get concerned because you're affiliated with in your conference is how they view that diploma and that degree. So, as far as moving to the ACC, I'm excited about that because I truly believe...and I've been in that conference for 4-5 years...they have excellent academics and they're very competitive on the field, so I'm happy to be in a conference like that."

On recruiting services and "stars"

"I think the stars and how many offers...that gets confusing, too. I've been sitting in homes now for three years and I'll hear a Dad say, "I can't believe he only has sixteen offers." I'm going, "Well, you only need one, right?"

And, "I can't believe he's a three-star kid."

"I don't know, what do you want me to say...he's a five-star kid in my mind, cause that's why we're here." I think it's become difficult.

We have a lot of players up here that are being recognized from a national stage. Maybe, because, the schools up here are recruiting him. It's funny when you watch some of the kids with the SEC, sometimes, you look at them. They might have started as a two-star or a three-star but as soon as they've got two or three visits from that conference, BOOM, they're a four-star overnight. And I think there's some five-star kids that we all can look at and say, 'hey, yeah, they're five-stars,' but it's interesting."

Check out the rest of the interview here where he talks about some of the incoming recruits.

H/T: @DrewRob31