As The Dust Settles On 2016 National Signing Day, How Ya Feeling?

Another National Signing Day is in the books and, all things considered, it seemed like a pretty good one for the Syracuse Orange.

Sure there were no four- or five-star recruits but that's subjective anyway. For a program like Syracuse, it's always going to be about developing talent instead of just having it fall into our laps.

Syracuse's middle-of-the-road rankings are actually pretty high for SU, especially in recent years. We didn't have a big-time recruit but we had a lot of solid guys stacked up. Just to be ahead of Boston College, Georgia Tech and Virginia in a lot of the rankings is a huge plus for the program. It's not about competition with Clemson and Florida State, it's about competing with the rest of the pack to work our way up. On paper, we're doing that.

Another thing that was pleasantly-surprising and one of those "I didn't realize this is what I wanted until it happened" moments was Dino Babers' press conference. After a day of playful tweets, Dino was pretty low-key, honest and upfront about the state of the program and how long it's going to take to make it his own.

I liked Scott Shafer for the most part but I did get kinda tired of the rah-rah "everything is fine" mantra he tried to maintain. That's part of what soured his relationship with the local media and many fans. When they questioned whether or not everything actually was fine, he turned it into "us vs. them" and that was the beginning of the end.

So far, it doesn't look like Dino is going down that road. He's made it clear that the 2016 Syracuse Football team probably isn't going to be world's better than the 2015 version. He said that this year's class and next year's class will be a "blend" as tries to remake the program into what he wants. SU fans hate being asked to be patient but at least he's being honest about it. Better to set expectations low and surpass them than to promise the moon and fail to deliver.

There are plenty of questions and discussions left to be had but for the moment, how do you feel about the state of Syracuse Football today compared to two days ago? John and I are pretty happy with the way NSD went, scoring it between a B+ and an A. But what do you think about it? Did SU do what they needed to do? Are there glaring omissions in our class? Do you still wish we could have reeled in one big fish? Plenty of time between now and the Colgate game to talk it out.