Marrone begins rearranging 2009 Orange

By Darrell Laurant  |   Sunday, April 05, 2009  |  Comments( 1 )

Syracuse Orange
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This is Doug Marrone's "gimme" season, his honeymoon. Basically, he is sitting down at the table to play with Greg Robinson's cards -- and if he happens to pull a freshman ace or two out of his sleeve, so much the better.

There must have been a temptation, then, for the new Syracuse University football coach to step lightly this spring, avoid trampling on egos and waiting until the fall to fully assert himself. With a 10-37 cumulative record during Robinson's tenure, including 3-25 in the Big East, the progress bar wasn't exactly set at an intimidating height.

But easing in is not Marrone's style. The flip side of being a new coach is that you bring a fresh perspective. Thus, Marrone looked at Doug Hogue and saw not a running back, but a linebacker. Several other Orange veterans seemed, to Marrone, to be playing out of position, and he moved them, as well.

The shocker, though, came at quarterback. This spring was supposed to be a tight competition between Cam Dantley -- hero of last season's upset victory over Notre Dame -- and veteran Andrew Robinson. Instead, Marrone announced last week that redshirt freshman Ryan Nassib, a 6-foot-3, 215-pounder from Malvern, Pa., would be the starter, with Dantley as the backup.

As for Robinson, the Quarterback of the Future when he arrived on campus in 2006, he became the Quarterback of the Past. Marrone looked at him and saw a tight end. The 6-3, 230-pound Robinson was OK with that, as long as he was allowed to keep his No. 9. Redshirt sophomore David Legree, who wound up as third string, was not OK -- he quit the team.

Syracuse has traditionally muddled through a quarterback competition in the spring that often spilled over into the fall. Even Donovan McNabb didn't win the job in his freshman year until he performed well in the 1996 season opener against North Carolina.

To Marrone, that didn't make sense. He wanted Nassib to take most of the reps in the spring, he said, because the team needed to fall into place around a certain quarterback's style.

Dantley, a fierce competitor, has vowed to win his job back. Incoming freshman Charlie Loeb, a 6-5 gunslinger out of Massachusetts, may be a factor come August.

For now, though, the pecking order is as Doug Marrone has declared it to be. He is, after all, the coach.
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