Dec. 29, 2004 – He’s gone now, so you can raise a glass and toast the new athletic director if you please.

This is a cause for celebration, right? Pop the cork already. Daryl Grossheard the boos, saw the 16-20 record over the past three years, the four games the Syracuse football team lost by more than 20 points and the back-to-back-to-back losses to Temple, Rutgers and then Temple again. And he acted.

In two weeks, Daryl Gross discovered what Jake Crouthamel failed to in his last five years. At Wednesday’s news conference in the Stevenson Educational Center in Manley Field House, Gross made his first move as Syracuse’s athletic director. He fired Paul Pasqualoni.

Hallelujah. Praise Jesus. Hit the streets and dance if you like. But Wednesday’s announcement only proved one thing: Syracuse messed up once again. Pasqualoni is gone and so, too, are Syracuse’s chances of landing a premier head coach.

Then again, it’s nothing new. Syracuse has had a less-than-average head coach for years now – since Donovan McNabb left in 1999.

But Syracuse made the wrong move yesterday when it fired Pasqualoni. In fact, Wednesday’s announcement followed a string of poor decisions.

When Syracuse called its pseudo news conference at last season’s end, itannounced that Pasqualoni would have a more influential role in the offense. That was the wrong move. SU should have fired Pasqualoni.

When Crouthamel and Chancellor Nancy Cantor sat alongside Pasqualoni last month, they announced he would likely stay for one more year, barring a intervention from the new AD. That was the wrong move. SU should have fired Pasqualoni.

On Wednesday, Gross fired Pasqualoni. And that was the wrong move. He should have kept the beleaguered old coach.

Why the sudden change of heart, the reversal in judgment, the shift inperception? Why, now, should SU have stuck with Coach P?

Simple – it’s too late.

Nineteen other Division I teams fired coaches this year. All 19 have hiredreplacements already. Plenty of good coaches were available – last month.

Syracuse could have cannon-balled into next season and hired a prominent head coach. Now, it’ll limp after hiring what’s certain to be a second-rate one.

Two coaches were available that Syracuse should have hired.

If SU hired Tyrone Willingham, whom Notre Dame dismissed last month, the Orange would have instantly become one of the best teams in the Big East, and the hiring would have given credibility to the now laughable Big East.

Some say Willingham was out of Syracuse’s price range. After all, he signed a five-year deal with Washington worth $1.43 million in guaranteed annual salary, plus incentives. As a private school, Syracuse could hardly compete with that.

But Pasqualoni was making about $700,000 with incentives as recently as 2003. SU could have offered a small pay bump for Willingham, maybe $1 million base. If SU offered millions of dollars in incentives (like BCS participation), Syracuse’s investment would have paid back multifold.

Plus, at SU, Willingham would avoid Washington’s pitiful program – one even worse than Syracuse’s. Washington finished 1-10 this season.

Rick Neuheisel soiled the program after gambling on NCAA basketball.Washington fired him for the incident.

All those blemishes could have made Syracuse much more attractive.

Another coach was available – Walt Harris. Stanford plucked Harris after he guided Pitt to a Bowl Championship Series game with comparable talent to Syracuse.

The only prominent head coach left is Butch Davis, who resigned from the Cleveland Browns earlier this season. But in a statement, Davis cited ‘intense pressure and scrutiny’ as the main reasons for his resignation and ESPN said, ‘barring a major change of heart, Davis will not likely coach next season.’

Now all signs point to … nobody. At least nobody that anyone has heard of.

Certainly Pasqualoni deserved to be fired. The program crashed under his guidance.

Blame whoever you like, whether it is Pasqualoni for driving the program south or Michael Vick for reneging on his verbal commitment in 1997. Either way, P deserved a kick to the curb.

But he deserved it last month, when Cantor and Crouthamel verbally hugged their embattled coach and gleamed with positivity about the future of Syracuse football.

‘Obviously, there has been some success here, and as of late, it has not been on a consistent basis,’ Gross said. ‘In looking at the past few seasons, there are some inconsistencies there, but at the same time there were some opportunities to do some great things that didn’t materialize, and that is unfortunate.’

Pasqualoni is a solid football coach, as he proved many times. He reached the Fiesta Bowl and Orange Bowl in 1997 and 1998, respectively. He attracted the nation’s top talent – at one time, at least.

He even finished 10-2 in his very first season, even more reason why SU should have fired him – a new head coach could mean success.

But it should have fired him last month. Not now.

‘I don’t know what’s appropriate or inappropriate,’ wide receivers coachDennis Goldman said diplomatically of the firing. ‘To me, it’s like no otherprofession on this earth. One day you’re told your contract is going to behonored, and then a few weeks later, you’re told you don’t have a job. As Coach P said, it kind of goes with the job.’

Now Syracuse fiddles with its delicate recruiting situation, too. The national recruiting deadline is Feb. 3. A late hire gives the new guy little time to fuse recruiting wounds left from Pasqualoni’s dismissal.

And a new coach will likely hire a new staff. Between hiring new assistants and recruiting, a new head coach will hardly have a succinct plan in place by 2005.

Then again, Syracuse hasn’t had one for three years now.

‘I think the timing is pretty logical,’ Gross said illogically. ‘We are goinginto the heart of the recruiting season right now. We needed to act one way or another as soon as we could evaluate the program, and I think we have done that.’

So who’s left? What coordinator or assistant coach will get a promotion and inherit this 6-6 mess?

Perhaps Gross wants to bring in a USC guy, like offensive coordinator Norm Chow, possibly the best candidate left.

He’s no Ty Willingham or Walt Harris. Chow hasn’t served as head coach since 1972, when he guided Waialua High School in Hawaii.

SU had a chance to bring in someone proven. Instead, Syracuse’s best hope seems to be feasting on Chow mein.

‘The timing now is good,’ Gross said, ‘because we can get a search going right away and get a head coach here to be able to stabilize our recruiting and reach for better things.’

Get ready doesn’t seem like such fine advice, considering Orange nation has watched this team lose more often than Ken Jennings’ opponents. But, well, for lack of a better suggestion, get ready. The next few years won’t get any better.

So screw the cork back into the champagne. You may want to cut thatcelebration short. After all, someone’s gotta start the firethenewcoach.com Web site.

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Scott Lieber is a staff writer at The Daily Orange, where his columns appear regularly. E-mail him at smlieber@syr.edu.

Published on December 30, 2004 at 12:00 pm