Believe it or not spring is just around the corner Salt City! With that comes spring practice for the Orange which officially begins this Sunday. All seems well and good for the Syracuse football squad. Then the Orange received another blow to their offseason.

Sources: Kansas State is hiring Steve Stanard for the open linebacker coach job. He comes from Syracuse, where he held the same position. He’s also worked at Wyoming and North Dakota State.

— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) March 5, 2020

You can’t make this kind of stuff up. The Orange have now lost their 4th assistant coach this offseason. The Orange lost defensive coordinator for 11 days Zach Arnett as he bolted to Mississippi State, quarterbacks coach Kirk Martin decided to go back to the Dallas area to be a high school coach, safeties coach Kim McCloud just straight up isn’t coming back. Now you add Steve Standard to the list, this has been quite a brutal offseason for the Syracuse football program.

Now on one hand, you can make the argument that coaches leave all the time. Assistant coaches are always looking to climb up the ranks so it’s just natural that you aren’t going to retain the same staff every single year. While yes that is true, it’s the way in which these coaches have left have me feeling concerned. Zach Arnett basically left in the middle of the night to go to Mississippi State after agreeing to be the next defensive coordinator for Syracuse. Kirk Martin went from quarterbacks coach, to being demoted to senior analyst of football strategy (whatever the hell that means) to saying screw it and going back to the Dallas-Fort Worth area to be a high school football coach. Now with Steve Stanard, who was considered for the defensive coordinator role after taking over for Brian Ward, has left the program days before spring practices begin. At a time when it’s critical to coach new players and establish chemistry for the 2020 squad.

I’m not going to go as far as to blame Dino Babers for any of this that’s insane. But after a disappointing 5-7 season, changes need to be made to the coaching staff and Babers did exactly that. Maybe he rubbed some of his assistant coaches the wrong way, but Babers is looking out for himself and the program and culture he built and is trying to continue to build. You have to make tough decisions that not everyone is going to like. That’s the price you pay when your the head coach. Hopefully this is the end of any coaches leaving before the 2020 season. We still have 5 to 6 months before the season even begins and a linebackers coach can easily be replaced. If I’m Dino Babers, as long as the Orange improve and win more in 2020, all those coaches leaving won’t mean that much. But if they finish with five or less wins in 2020, Babers may need to start looking over his shoulders as he could be the next coach to go.