Enjoy your morning? Because this is going to ruin it.
#Syracuse AD Mark Coyle is leaving the university after less than a year. Will be taking a job in Minnesota for family reasons.
— chris carlson (@ccarlsononSU) May 11, 2016
Your first reaction, like mine: WHAT THE ...., COYLE?
After Minnesota sent out this very odd, poorly-worded tweet, which linked to this similarly oddly-worded story on GopherSports.com, it took just minutes for Syracuse.com's Chris Carlson to confirm the news.
Mark Coyle had been the Syracuse Orange athletic director for less than a year (he was announced on June 19, 2015) and we liked him well enough in that time. He hired Dino Babers, named Mike Hopkins as Jim Boeheim's official successor, and by and large, just seemed to do things in a better fashion than DOCTOR Gross ever did. He also presided over the most successful year of athletics in SU history.
Coyle is a Midwest guy originally, and previously worked at Minnesota in various athletic department roles. When he was hired, we were a little worried about his resume as a careerist (jumped around a ton), but never thought he'd jump this soon. To say it's a disappointing development would be an understatement.
***
Perhaps family reasons is the true motivation behind this, but I'm tempted to believe the shackles and frustrations of the job -- the same ones that seemed to drive out Doug Marrone, stop Scott Shafer from being a nice guy and many other lesser developments -- could have played a role as well. That Big Ten money never hurts, either. Minnesota played the long game on getting back at us for that Texas Bowl win...
In any case, now we have to start over. At least Coyle did some good while he was here, but the timing of his departure doesn't really do us many favors. Be as bitter as you want in the comments (I'm certainly annoyed already), and maybe we'll get around to figuring out who the hell is replacing him on such short notice and after such a short tenure.
