Since Scott Shafer took over as the head coach of the Syracuse Orange, you may have noticed a difference in the way the coaching staff presents itself.
Multiple coaches and admins are active on Twitter. Shafer himself even tweets and regularly uses his catchphrase #hardnosed. There's an openness about what this coaching staff is about and what they're trying to do.
That's a stark contract from the Doug Marrone Regime. Marrone became very invested in keeping things close to the chest (or thighs, as it were). He's the founder of The Dreaded Lower/Upper Body Injury report. Marrone refused to talk about what went on behind the scenes with his program and preferred to just let the team's play speak for him.
Brent Axe followed up on an interview that SU recruit A.J. Long did with ESPN Radio this week* in which Long described the difference between the Marrone Regime and the Shafer Regime:
"Coach Marrone, he was always in his office," Long said. "He was secluded from the world it seemed like when I was up there for my visit with them. Coach Shafer, Coach McDonald and Coach Lester showed me around the entire day.
"That was a big difference knowing that the head coach, offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach are all excited for you to be here. They want you to be here. On top of that, they want to be a part of your life outside of football."
Interesting, but, meaningless at the end of the day, and certainly not anything to get worked up about. Doug Marrone could have taken a dump outside the Carrier Dome every day if he wanted to, so long as he kept putting Syracuse in bowl games.
It's also important to note that Doug Marrone was not "wrong" for doing any of those aforementioned things. He was/is not a bad person because he wanted to put a lid on SU football and be the only person allowed to open it. It's just a different style. And so long as he was winning, you didn't give a s***, did you? Same will go for Shafer.
** I like A.J. Long's moxie and his willingness to promote SU but, something tells me, someone's going to tell him to button it up pretty soon. Which would probably be for the best anyway. The Orange Twitter Army thing is cute, but, you know...
