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Amazingly, Syracuse Might Be In Worse Shape After Firing Greg Robinson

May 3, 2010, 9:00 PM UTC

It will come as no surprise that Greg Robinson was not a very good head coach, what with Syracuse collapsing into an epic pile of suck during his career. The implosion was so complete that Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician instituted an annual “Quest For Toronto” feature that chronicled the Orange’s inevitably futile attempt to rack up the six wins required for an International Bowl berth. Usually the Quest ended with a few games left in the season. â†µâ†µPoint: Greg Robinson. Not good. News value: zero. However, the lemming-like self-immolation of the roster in the aftermath of Doug Marrone’s hiring is of interest: â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥“Everything was rolling,” Middleton said in a phone interview a little more than one year later. “And my focus level was so high, I didn’t think it could’ve been broken. And once that happened, that really sent me down because that was my life.”â†µâ‡¥
â†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥After being let go from the team for a curfew violation, Middleton became one of 28 players The Daily Orange has found that have vanished from the program in the past year.â†µâ‡¥

â†µâ†µâ†µThere’s a certain amount of attrition that goes with any coaching transition, but Marrone has excised a third of his roster in little more than a year. This vastly outstrips turbulent transitions at Michigan (ten players lost in the first year) and Tennessee (eleven). Marrone feels deeply for each and every one of them, too: â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥SU head coach Doug Marrone said he did not know the exact number, but said it was “somewhere in the numbers (The Daily Orange) mentioned.”â†µâ‡¥

â†µâ†µâ†µThis isn’t a matter of oversigning, a topic I rail about whenever given the opportunity. Syracuse had just 49 scholarship players this spring even with five early enrollees. If every one of their 29 recruits qualifies, Marrone will roll into the season a whopping twelve scholarships short of the 85 maximum. Whatever the reasons for the massive attrition, they apparently do not include a ruthless attempt to be really good really soon. â†µ

â†µ

â†µWhat, then? The Daily Orange's story paints a fairly stern picture of Marrone. Marrone thinks dismissed defensive tackle Lamar Middleton is an alcoholic:â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥“(Marrone) thought I was an alcoholic because I told him that I had a Long Island ice tea,” Middleton said. “After that, he tried to put me on alcoholic counseling. I said, ‘OK, if that’s what I need to do to gain your trust back, then I will do that.’”â†µâ‡¥

â†µâ†µâ†µMiddleton was eventually dismissed for a curfew violation he claims never happened; check the story for his impression of Allan Iverson (“We’re talking about curfew”).â†µ

â†µâ†µThe Orange’s story primarily relies on one dismissed, and presumably disgruntled, player—though it does quote former Syracuse cornerback JohnMark Henderson saying “the only thing keeping us together was to go out in the parking lot and talk about how much we hated it”—and has to be regarded somewhat skeptically. And Greg Robinson might actually be the sort of happy fuzzy bear who only recruits free spirits that will bolt from anyone who acts like the man, man. â†µ

â†µâ†µEven so, losing a third of your roster in a year seems like a bad way to go about improving things. “My way or the highway” sounds good until the highway looks like New Orleans a day before Hurricane Katrina. â†µ

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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

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