December 8th, 2022 will be a day to remember for the Syracuse football program, not in a good way. Around midday, ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported the Orange defensive coordinator Tony White was heading to Nebraska to take the same role under new head coach Matt Rhule. That was just the start.
A few hours later, reports came out that after just one season, Robert Anae was leaving SU for NC State to become the Wolfpack’s offensive coordinator, and that quarterbacks coach Jason Beck was stepping up to replace him. It’s hard not to think this wasn’t a coordinated move by Anae, who had brought Beck with him to his last three stops as an OC. Maybe he wanted to give his longtime protege a shot at running the show, for which he is definitely qualified.
Syracuse is in a lot more trouble defensively than it is offensively with these changes because Beck can provide consistency from Anae’s work this season and put his own flare on it. Defensively, it’s been reported that position coach and passing game coordinator Nick Monroe will be the interim after White’s departure, and that’s well-deserved as he’s been the Orange’s best recruiter over the past few years.
But, if he sticks on staff, his ability to retain the Orange’s current talent will be crucial to the next few years of this program. Multiple players, like Duce Chestnut and Caleb Okechukwu, took to Twitter after the news broke, and did not seem thrilled about White’s departure for a unit that had improved mightily under his 3-3-5 scheme the last few seasons.
Offensively, Beck is ready to be an offensive coordinator. He’s been with Anae, a successful OC, for over a decade, and is ready to take this challenge. He’s developed roots in Syracuse, and his wife is very active on Twitter. Plus, the immediate concern when something like this happens is your future recruits, but Beck has a tight relationship with 2023 QB LaNorris Sellers, a top-500 player on 247 Sports, and the Orange’s top commitment.
So, the question still exists about who is next to leave the 315. It could be players entering the transfer portal, and I don’t think that would be a surprise to anyone. Or, it could be more coaches. The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman, a very well-respected college football reporter, had Dino Babers on a short list of candidates to replace Jeff Brohm at Purdue given his ties to the midwest and history in the area.
That seems unlikely, but nobody thought both of Syracuse’s coordinators would be gone to take the same job at a different school within six hours of each other. Expect the unexpected. How you handle turnover both at the coaching and player level is how you sustain winning as a program nowadays in college football, and John Wildhack has a lot to answer for in the coming days about what went wrong in negotiations with White especially, but why they left so soon.