Head Coach Doug Marrone NLI Press Conference (Feb. 3, 2010)
Opening Statement:
"First of all, thanks for being here today. It's always important to have people show up and show their support of our program. There are obviously a lot of people I have to thank. First I'd like to thank Chancellor Nancy Cantor and our athletics director, Dr. Daryl Gross, for the support they have for our football program and this great University. I'd also like to thank our administration and our faculty. We went on the road and we talked to these recruits about the relationship they can build with our faculty to develop them into leaders in whatever industry they decide to go in. I thank them. They are an important part of this recruiting process. Our alumni and letterwinners, I can't tell you how much they mean to us by going back into their communities throughout this great country and throughout the world and giving us the ability to go outside our recruiting areas at times. You'll see in the class that we were able to go out to California and get two recruits from California. I really give a lot of credit to the alumni we have out in California and what they've done in their industry and how recognized they are in that area. That helps us throughout this great country. The community, and the support we get from them, is so important. I can't tell you how many times we bring parents in with our players and they go to a mall and go shopping or they go down on Marshall Street and they'll talk about the support of this football program.
"I'd also like to thank Empower Federal Credit Union for recognizing how important New York State high school football is and for helping them achieve their goal of getting an All-Star game.
"We'd like to thank our players. Our players are a big part of this, too. It's hard to bring players into a program if the players in your program aren't happy or satisfied with what we're trying to do as coaches in developing them with their live skills, leadership and character as well as becoming good football players. Our staff – from our coaches to our administration and their families – the sacrifices that we made to go on the road for how many straight days to be away from our children and to work late hours, to make sure faxes are coming in. I thank our staff for that. It's been a very exciting time.
"The first full recruiting class – our main goal as coaches when we first came here was to regain the foundation that has made this school so great in the sport of football. We are back in New York. We did a good job in New York, we did a good job in Florida, we did a good job in New Jersey, we did a good job in Pennsylvania – all the areas that I spoke about before, we were able to go in and get quality people. That was important to us.
“The one thing that I can say about this class as a general topic is that everyone in this class can run. Everyone who is involved with football knows that you have to bring players in who can run. That's an important part of what we're doing here to develop our football team.
"We talk a lot about character and class. We talk about the ability to develop into being the best you can be. We feel we've done a good job in the academic background of our players to succeed at our school. That's the responsibility we have as coaches to our faculty, administration and alumni. We feel we have the ability to upgrade our football team in all areas. We were able to sign 31 players, with seven being enrolled in school now and 24 players coming in for our Summer Start program. We've built our numbers back up to a team with close to 85 scholarships.
"When we talk about what we've been trying to do during this process, we were also in the process of hiring new coaches. That's critical. One of the things that is critical in hiring new coaches is that you want to bring in great communicators, you want to bring in people who can develop our players outside of football, which is the most important thing to me in developing their life skills and character.
"I'll start with Rob Moore, who is an alumnus and a letterwinner at Syracuse University. He was a tremendous player. We first met, and Rob may not remember this, but (former Orange standout quarterback and College Football Hall of Fame inductee) Donnie McPherson had brought Rob up here during the summer one year and we met one time in the living room of a summer apartment I was living in. Through the years, I've always followed Rob. We (the NFL) were on strike in 1987 and we came back here and watched Rob catch the opening touchdown pass against Penn State. I always admired Rob with how he carried himself and what he did. He reached out to me and said he wanted to get involved in college coaching. We started communicating. Through that time, in my mind, I said if I ever did have a position for someone who we can bring athletes into our program to look up to and try to aspire to be like, then I would want Rob Moore on our staff. We're happy to have Rob Moore on our staff coaching our wide receivers.
"When I was with the University of Tennessee, I had the opportunity to go into the NFL. Someone took a chance on me. I was the offensive tackle coach at the University of Tennessee at the time and a gentleman by the name of Paul Hackett was the offensive coordinator at the New York Jets and he really had the power to hire an offensive line coach. He saw a young coach in me and he was willing to take a chance on me. I think I did great job for him. Through this relationship between myself and Coach Hackett, I was able to meet his son, Nathaniel. Nathaniel was always around us. He's been a part of what I believe is a great offensive system and we've been in contact throughout our times in the NFL to exchange ideas. The best fit for me has been that I'm now the play-caller, as the offensive coordinator, I brought someone in who has the same type of background in the passing game and the teaching of the quarterbacks. I brought Nathaniel Hackett in to coach our quarterbacks and help with the passing game.
"As you go through the recruiting process, you meet a lot of people. Through this process, as we were recruiting two players down in Florida, I ran into a coach. Coach (Stan) Drayton, who coached here last year, was telling me about a player he had coached and really mentored. He was the head coach and athletics director at the University School. At the time I obviously didn't know we were going to have a running back position available. I just sat back and could not believe the job, the communication and mentoring, that was going on at that school. I remember walking out thinking to myself, if I ever needed a running back coach to come in, I would think about hiring Roger Harriott. That situation came up. I did not waste any time and Roger Harriott will be coaching our running backs.
"With the defensive hire, this is what happened. I have a lot of respect for a lot of coaches in the country. There are a number of defensive line coaches who I admire in how they work. I made a phone call to one of my close friends, someone who I competed against for a long time, Pete Jenkins. He just retired from the Philadelphia Eagles the season before last and he's training pro athletes for the NFL draft. I said, 'Pete, I'm looking for someone who's just like me from a technical standpoint who can take our line and develop them into being the best defensive line they can be.' He gave me the name of Jimmy Brumbaugh and Jimmy and I talked on the phone a couple of times. We went in there and I felt the best fit for our staff and the best person we could hire was Jimmy Brumbaugh.
"It's been great. It's an exciting time for us. We're bringing players in. Obviously when we talk about the class, I always agree that you cannot define this class until you get them on a college football field and they start actually playing. A class will be defined for us one or two years down the road. We had a lot of young players come in and play for us last year and a lot of them had some success on the field. That doesn't necessarily mean that the players coming in will have that same kind of success, even though we look forward to it. We feel we have a good corps of players on our football and we feel the players coming in will create competition. Through that competition, we'll be a better football team. I'm excited about the class coming in. The community will be excited, as will the lettermen, alumni, faculty, administration, our athletics director and Chancellor. We're excited to field a good football team that will be in competition.
"The great thing that is happening right now is that when you give credit, everyone gets credit. Greg Adkins is our recruiting coordinator. It's very difficult as far as where you go, how you know what coaches to put in those areas and just the logistics of getting around this country. I'm going to bring Greg Adkins up here to talk about the class and then we'll both take questions on it."
On whether the coaches looked at speed as a factor when recruiting:
"I always look at the recruiting package. I look at people who can run, frames of people that we can develop and I look from a technical standpoint at where they are. We have a very interesting system in how we evaluate. We score each one of the players who we think about recruiting and that's how we can tell whether we recruit them or not. We have three top numbers with height, weight and speed that we look at and then we have characteristics of each position and we grade them from one to five. We do that so we can help build a bigger football team. We feel that when we go out we're trying to get our football team to be a bigger team when we take the field so we can have more to develop in those players. I believe in getting people wo can run. I look at this class and the first thing I look at as a coach is that everyone can go out there and run, which is an important part of being a football player. We don't really have anyone in this class who has to drop a lot of weight and build back up. We're starting with players who already have a good frame on them who will keep developing and maturing their body, or we have players right now who are going to have to put weight on. There is no one in my mind right now that we have to say we have to take weight off and put back on through that process. The two most important people in our program right now are weight coaches and they’re probably the most excited about this class."
On whether the coaches plan on filling the 25th scholarship spot:
"Here's exactly what we'll do as a staff, and we started this process the other day when we all came back in. There are still some players who are out there. We'll start that evaluation process and see where we are. There are some players who have exhausted eligibility in other sports that people sent in, a lot like Greg Paulus' situation last year that we're evaluating. We'll look at it and say, 'Do we feel we can go out and get the quality type of player that we need at Syracuse University who can help us, or do we save that scholarship for next year?' As of next year, we have approximately 24 and obviously if we save one, it would give us 25."
On whether he believes he filled the needs they needed:
"You have an ideal number. You take a team and you have an ideal number of what you want at each position. That number obviously has to equal 85. Last year we had less than half of a recruiting year and we came in and tried to pick the best players available. You worry about getting the number correct the following year. So, linebacker, wide receiver, offensive line, defensive line, defensive back – they are areas that we're looking to fulfill. The only area that our numbers are not ideal would be at the corner position. At the end of the day when you evaluate when you should have the numbers right, it probably takes three recruiting classes to be right on the money with those numbers. You need the foresight like our defensive line numbers to be high because we'll graduate a lot of defensive linemen, knowing it's going to be tough to get three quality defensive linemen in one year. We try to stay one step ahead of that as we go through. We look at it one year out, and we also look at it two years out. That can get you into some difficult situations when you have juniors leaving to go onto the NFL and it can catch you off guard from our end."
On his thoughts on the receivers and linebackers:
"They'll probably have a chance to get on the field quickest, but we feel we have two outstanding linebackers in our program right now with Doug Hogue and Derrell Smith, who I thought should have had some post-season honors. They'll (the newcomers) have the ability to get on the field, no different than a lot of our players. It still goes to the fact that once you can create competition, the best players play. At the end of the year team meeting, I said to the players, 'There are a lot of players who have a lot of expectations of their performance next year and where they are and where they're going to be. Some of you will reach those expectations, some of you will not.' But again, we're all starting from zero again and we have to earn these positions. I go back to the story Coach Mac (Dick MacPherson) always said to me, 'Doug Marrone, are you the starting right tackle for Syracuse University?' I would say, 'Yes,' and he would say, 'No, you're not. The Syracuse University starting offensive tackle is Doug Marrone.' I really try to make sure our players understand that we are never able to start where we left off. We have to start from scratch and build it back up."
On the two new quarterbacks, John Kinder and Jonny Miller:
"I think whenever you talk about quarterbacks, the first thing you talk about is accuracy. Both quarterbacks are very accurate in what they do. Both quarterbacks have the skill to move the pocket, be able to move and have a feel for the pocket and have some athleticism. That's what we're looking for in a quarterback is the ability to throw, make good decisions, and be leaders."
On how he rates his progress on being able to recruit in the New York area:
"I feel very good about it. It was obviously our goal when I came in here to regain that foundation. When you look back, and you can go back as far as 1957, when you talk about the players we got from Long Island, New York City, the 250 mile radius and what they've done here at Syracuse University. To go back into the state and get nine players in New York State, obviously, we're very excited about that."
On the junior college student-athletes (Olando Fisher and Michael Hay from Nassau Community College, Lou Alexander from College of the Canyons and Deon Goggins from Cerritos Community College) and Hofstra transfers (Jose Cruz and Aaron Weaver):
"They adjust faster as far as the atmosphere. They're mature from a body standpoint as far as working out and they know what's expected from them. To say they have the ability to go out there and play right away more than a freshman coming in, from a physical standpoint, maybe they do. I always say that the closer you are to the ball, the harder it is to play. Some of our players are defensive linemen and being from a junior college they probably will be able to come in and play earlier because they are more developed physically. It's the same thing with an offensive line. They're more developed and that's a big thing. I had dreams and aspirations when I first came to Syracuse as a freshman until someone hit me in the mouth and I realized I had a lot of work to do. I think that happened to a lot of us who have played here. There is that transition from high school to college and then college to the NFL. I always said the toughest transition was high school to college because of the way you train and the way you get prepared to play and the type of people you play – you're playing against the best."
On how big it was to get defensive linemen Micah Robinson and Deon Goggins in the last couple days:
"I think it was big. It was tough. You're talking about recruiting battles against other great universities. The last three players that we were able to get are all big, tall, rangy type players. Offensive and defensive line players are probably the toughest players to get, especially on the defensive line. When we were pretty solidified in the rest of the class, we were going into this weekend with the uncommitted players. We felt good with those players and we said if we can get these three players this would be a great way for us to finish. When it starts to go down that way, you get excited. We're excited about the way we finished with those players."
On the numbers of defensive tackles on the current roster and whether there will be movement:
"If you think about the course of the season during a game, you want to rotate pretty much four players in that position, so you have two nose guards and two defensive tackles. We have four players there right now so you bring in other players who can compete at that position who will help. Obviously, sometimes some of our defensive ends can grow into defensive tackles. On defense, as well as offense, we're always looking to get big, tall, rangy corners so if they don't have the ability to do what's asked of them or if we have two good corners, then one can move to safety. Our safeties move to outside linebackers, our outside linebackers move to middle linebackers, our middle linebackers move to defensive linemen, our outside linebackers move to defensive ends, our defensive ends can move to defensive tackles. There's a plan when we're recruiting, no different than this class right here. Some of these players in some in the more athletic positions – running back, receiver, corner, safety – a lot of our players in our evaluation system in what we do, we'll look at a running back and if we approve him on offense as a running back and we're going to go and recruit him to play that position, we still give that player to our defensive staff to evaluate him at a position on defense. Every one of our players has a dual evaluation, more so in the athlete-type category than the offensive and defensive linemen."
On the biggest selling point to come to Syracuse:
"Honestly, I would say it’s the academics. That's why I go back to who we are, a private institution, a New York State, BCS team, and who we are as an institution. The type of people who graduate from here and go out into these communities – that's why we're able to go into Texas and get a kid. I can't tell you what our two players from California would say, but I know that when we went out there, we talked a lot about the alumni in that area and what you can do with a degree from Syracuse. We talked about the life skills program and how we believe in developing the person first before we develop the athlete. It's true – that's built into our program and that's what we do. For us, it's a little bit different. We know it's a program that's rejuvenated. We feel good about where we're going. When you go into a home and you talk to the players about that, they feel it, too. We're very comfortable with bringing these players in, along with the players we have here, to get to our goal – to get to a bowl game, to win a championship. They feel that. We want to make sure they understand that when it's all said and done and football is over for them, they are going to have a degree from a University that is going to create opportunity for them in a global stage. That's important for them."
On the fact that the recruiting class represents 11 different states:
"Our philosophy is simple. We look within a 250 mile radius. We'll go out to wherever we have to go if there's an interest academically in what we have to offer. That's what takes us out into areas like California and Texas. As far as Florida, we've always had a good base in Florida. We've always done a good job recruiting in Florida from when I was here to after I left. It all comes down to this— you can go into areas and recruit if you have a strong alumni base that includes leaders in that community. That's why our alumni and our lettermen are so important to us when we go out to recruit. Not that their allowed to do anything, everyone understands the NCAA rules, but they're recognizable people in their community and they're leaders. People look to see how they get to be like that. They go out and speak and they talk about Syracuse University. When you talk about Syracuse University and you can walk into a school and say Syracuse University and the start mentioning people like Mike Tirico, Sean McDonough, whoever it may be in all different fields, then you have a relationship or something in common with that player that you can go out and recruit him. To say we're national, I don't know if you can make that statement. Do we get players from around this country? Yes, we do. But we get them because of their interest in our school academically."
On who he believes was overlooked by other school in this year's class:
"I'm excited about all these players because you really don't know. I'm going to go back to a point when I was coaching in the NFL and I think this will answer that question. Jahri Evans is the Pro Bowl and All-Pro right guard for the New Orleans Saints. When some people used to talk about Jahri Evans, people would say, 'Jahri Evans is going to take two to three years to develop into a great player.' When I read about Jahri Evans, I said, 'Jahri is going to come in here and play.' Someone asked me, 'Why would you say that? He went to a school, Bloomsburg, and they don't really pass protect that much?' I said, 'If I had the philosophy that Jahri Evans wasn't going to come in here and play right away, why would I coach him?' I talk to our coaches all the time about how every player we bring into this program, we have to coach him like he's going to play for us now. That way, he gets the best out of us as coaches. I truly mean that. To look at a piece of paper and say who's going to be better than who, we're already creating a biased opinion on one of these players. I do not want that from our coaches. I want to coach every one of these players, as well as the players we have here, the same way, like they're all going to play for us. They might some day."
On whether they got on the recruiting process early:
"I think it's important for us to make sure that we go out and, for lack of a better term, beat down the bushes and try to find the players who are going to fit into our program and offer them. Too many times, everyone says, 'I really like them, who offered?' Then all of the sudden, when they say so-and-so, then they offer, too. That's not how we work in our program. We evaluated those players and if we feel like they're good enough, we offer. If we're the only one that offers him, that's great by me. I don't have to go ahead and fight the battles we need to fight. What happened in this class, the things that go unnoticed is that we went out and offered them early and then everyone else came behind us. I think it's important, just like everything else in life, if you offer someone first, there's something to that. We can build on that relationship that we were the ones to go out in front. We don't just go out and offer everyone like some schools do, we evaluate them first, get in touch with the coach, do a background check, talk about character, and try to find someone at the school outside of the football area – maybe an English teacher or math teacher – to go out and check on these kids. That's what we're trying to do."
On his excitement for next year:
"I'm excited about recruiting as far as how we went out and re-established our foundation. That's going to develop the relationship for years to come. I'm more excited about what our players are doing here to get themselves ready for Spring practice when it comes down to actually taking the field and playing football. I have a better sense of what our players here can do and to watch them and how they interacting with each other, how they're communicating, how they're going after it in the weight room, how they're going after the running and how they're going after academics – I feel like we've made great strides."
