Upon taking the stand at the Carrier Dome’s podium in August to start his second season as Syracuse’s head coach, Doug Marrone recognized where the improvement in his team needed to start.

‘We have to get better, and that starts with me,’ Marrone said. ‘I have to get better at everything that we do. I’ve talked to the assistant coaches and told them we need them to be better. … I’m expecting us to be better and be a more competitive football team.’

Marrone had the right expectations. Syracuse improved across the board in his second year at the helm of the Orange.

Still, those improvements weren’t enough to earn Marrone recognition as the Big East Coach of the Year. Instead, the Big East selected Louisville’s Charlie Strong and Connecticut’s Randy Edsall as co-Coaches of the Year Wednesday, the conference announced in a release. Marrone finished third behind his two counterparts.

The accomplishments of Marrone’s second season are well established by now. He took a team that went 4-8 in his first season to a bowl game for the first time since 2004. The bowl game will take place in Yankee Stadium on Dec. 30, when the Orange will take on Kansas State in the Pinstripe Bowl. This season is also Syracuse’s first winning season since 2001.

Marrone’s SU team won four Big East road games for the first time ever. However, the Orange also did not win a conference home game.

Led by Marrone, Syracuse beat West Virginia and Cincinnati on the road. They were SU’s first victories over those opponents in five seasons for each. SU also beat South Florida for the first time in the history of the two team’s matchups.

Syracuse was predicted to finish seventh in the conference in the preseason Big East media poll. The Orange finished fourth.

Through bumps and bruises along the way, Edsall led UConn to end where it wasn’t predicted to be at the start of the season — at the top of the Big East. The Huskies received just one first-place vote in the Big East preseason poll and were picked to finish fourth.

Those predictions were warranted for the team’s first seven games. Connecticut was 3-4 and stuck in the middle of the conference. But the Huskies beat Pittsburgh and went on to win their remaining five games, including a 26-3 win over Syracuse on Nov. 20. UConn will represent the Big East in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl.

Strong represents much of the same turnaround Marrone brought to Syracuse. But Strong did so in his first year, improving a team that won two games total in the Big East for the past two seasons and was picked to finish last this season.

But the Cardinals finished 6-6, and they will go to a bowl for the first time since 2006 — the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl. Louisville also was triumphant over Syracuse this season, beating the Orange 28-20 in the Dome on Nov. 6.

Seven SU players earn Big East honors

SU senior Doug Hogue was named to the All-Big East first team on Wednesday. Six other Orange players earned second-team honors.

Hogue was second on the team with 89 tackles on the season, including an SU-high 9.5 tackles for loss. He also recorded three sacks and two interceptions and blocked a kick. He was the leader in the middle of a Syracuse defense that ranked fifth in the nation in total defense under defensive coordinator Scott Shafer.

The six players making the conference’s second team were senior running back Delone Carter, senior linebacker Derrell Smith, junior defensive end Chandler Jones, redshirt freshman left tackle Justin Pugh, freshman kicker Ross Krautman and senior punter Rob Long. Syracuse’s athletic department announced earlier this week that Long would miss the Pinstripe Bowl to have surgery on a benign brain tumor.

The seven All-Big East selections are the most for the Orange since 2004.

bplogiur@syr.edu

Published on December 8, 2010 at 12:00 pm