Scott Shafer Is Taking That Dead Pig & Running With It

Syracuse Orange head coach Scott Shafer spoke with Ivan Maisel about his new position with the football program and how he got here. Some interesting tidbits therein, first and foremost, his in-depth breakdown of the game of football.

"At the end of the day," Shafer said, "we got 11 guys fighting with their 11 guys to take a dead pig with air in it a hundred yards one way or the other. And a lot of people think we're really smart because of it, or really dumb because of it."

Yup. That about sums it up.

We've heard a lot about Shafer's very-quick tenure at Michigan, which ended after one disastrous season as their DC. Shafer is on record saying he took the job because of the buildings "instead of the people in the buildings." What we haven't ever really heard is from his boss at the time, current Arizona Wildcats coach Rich Rodriguez:

"A lot of that was my fault," Rodriguez said last week on the phone from Arizona, where he is starting his second season as head coach. "He's a very good football coach. … Scott took the blame for things that weren't his fault. The other [defensive coaches] didn't know his system. He was a teaching a whole new system to players and coaches. It wasn't really fair to him."

I was always concerned about the way Shafer fell on his sword that season, nice to see RichRod is honest about the time and his tenure. As for his decision to hire GRob, no explanation will ever be enough...