By Brian Callahan

Doug Marrone made a number of questionable decisions during Saturday’s loss to Rutgers.  I don’t need to remind you of all of them.  The worst decision came well before the game even started. I’m talking about his decision to not have a special teams coach.

I was shocked when I read this summer the team had no special teams coach. Marrone and the other coaches are just going to pitch in. When I told some non-SU fans this fact, they just laughed. Special teams shouldn’t be treated like a pot luck dinner with friends from work. I thought we are trying to build a big-time, top-25 program here.  This single decision ended up costing the team the Rutgers game and could end up costing them more in the future.

Football isn’t too complicated. There are three key parts: offense, defense and SPECIAL TEAMS.  At the very least, an average special teams unit will improve field position and do the little things not to lose the game. An above average special teams unit gives any team an advantage going into any game. I’m sure Frank Beamer at Virginia Tech agrees with me. Before Beamer Ball, we had great special teams under Coach P in the 90’s led by Kevin Johnson, Quinton Spotwood, Olindo Mare and Nate Trout.

We don’t have the talent or depth right now to field a great special teams unit but we should at least try. You can’t tell me a coach designated to focus solely on special teams wouldn’t have made a difference on Saturday. Special teams kept seven points off the board. We didn’t need all seven points to win on Saturday, just one. A special teams coach would be able to help center Eric Morris with his high snap.  Or maybe the coach would have made sure the line had the correct blocking assignment on a blocked kick.  Or maybe the coach wouldn’t have called for a blocked punt on a 4^th and long that resulted in roughing the kicker.

Maybe when we move to the ACC we can finally get one. We know we’ll be able to afford it.