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Until the Syracuse Orange have a new football coach, we'll be previewing candidates that may be up for the job. One of these individuals might be leading the program. Or maybe it's someone else entirely. Sometimes we're wrong. Sorry.
Who's this guy?
Where is he right now?
Coastal Carolina, which is not actually a state. Specifically, he's the head football coach of the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers of the Big South Conference (I-AA). All he's done in four years there is go 41-13 and take the team to the FCS Playoffs all four times. Previous to this season, the team won twelve games in back-to-back years.
Where else has he been?
Back in the 70's and early 80's he was an assistant on the high school level and eventually DC at Lafayette before giving up the football biz for another career. He decided to work on Wall Street instead and took a job with Merrill Lynch which he eventually parlayed into the CEO role with TD AmeriTrade. He stepped down in 2008 and took an unpaid assistant gig with Nebraska. From there he went whole hog back into coaching as the head coach of the UFL's Virginia Destroyers and then head coach of the Omaha Nighthawks. In 2011 he took over as head coach at Coastal Carolina where he took was what a good program and turned them into a great one.
What do current fans think of him?
Hard to say exactly but surely they can't argue with the results. He probably rubs some people the wrong way due to his business-like approach to running a football program but he gets results. Considering Syracuse just fired a really great guy with bad results, we'd probably be fine with a guy who wins a lot but isn't a "player's coach."
Random fun fact:
He's probably the only coaching candidate out there who will get a ringing endorsement from Warren Buffett.
"If a college president calls me about Joe, I'd tell him to do it," Buffett says. "There's a skepticism that exists when a guy hasn't been doing it his whole life. I don't know whether a president is calling and asking that question, but I would feel that Joe would not only help my kid hit his potential in football, he'd help him be successful in life. I would think he could run any top-notch football program."
Six degrees of Syracuse:
Moglia doesn't have much in connections to Syracuse, per se, but he's got lots of connections to the region. He was born and raised in Manhattan, went to school at Fordham and is well-connected to Wall Street. He's New York's College Coach.
Advantages to hiring him?
Syracuse Football instantly becomes a case study that the entire nation will be watching. His connections could also help bring some much-needed financial backing to the program. Moglia strikes me as a Mike Leach-type who could rack up wins with a unique style that's hard to match.
Drawbacks to hiring him?
He's old (66) and while he's succeeded at the FCS level, he hasn't won any championships and he hasn't proven anything on the big stage. He might be better suited to step up to a MAC or Sun Belt program and ply his trade there for a couple years before moving up to a place like Syracuse that can't afford another failed rebuild. And because he's a bit of a novelty, he could turn the program into a laughingstock if things go south.
Odds it happens?
Despite what SB Nation thinks, it seems like it would be a tough sell right now. It's one thing to hire a proven assistant who's an unproven head coach and it's another thing altogether to hire a guy like Moglia. It would be worth sitting down with him to find out what he thinks, if he's interested and what a Joe Moglia Syracuse Program looks like. But for now I think you keep that in your back pocket. So let's say 5%.
Previous Profiles: Scott Frost, Ed Orgeron, Dino Babers