BIG EAST Syracuse still struggling and coach is under fire

Coach Paul Pasqualoni is 106-57-1 in 14 years, but the program is slumping.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) -- The players hear it and so do the coaches. The perception is out there that Syracuse football is in a downward spiral.
Is it? Or is the tradition-rich program just experiencing a temporary slump in this age of parity?
Coach Paul Pasqualoni is 106-57-1 in 14 seasons at Syracuse and 6-2 in bowl games. But the Orange have struggled to break even the last three years after going 10-3 and finishing 14th in the nation in 2001.
Syracuse was 4-8 in 2002, 6-6 last year, and is 5-4 this season with games remaining at Temple and Boston College. Since Donovan McNabb left for the NFL after the 1998 season, the Orange have played in the postseason only twice and have lost regular season games to Big East weaklings Rutgers and Temple.
Rock-bottom might have come in September with a 51-0 loss at Purdue on national television, Syracuse's most lopsided season-opening defeat in 112 seasons.
Fans want change
All of that and more has evoked waves of criticism from fans desperate for a coaching change. There is even an anti-Pasqualoni Web site. It doesn't seem to matter that most of Pasqualoni's players leave with a degree and the school is regularly cited by the NCAA for the football program's academic excellence.
Attendance for the five home games this season averaged 37,068, about three-quarters of capacity in the Carrier Dome. That's a far cry from 1992, Pasqualoni's second season, when a record average crowd of 49,325 turned out to watch the sixth-ranked Orange.
"We've been up, we've been down since I've been here," said athletic director Jake Crouthamel, who has been on the job since 1978. "Is it alarming? I don't think so. But if it persists over a period of time, not two years, then it might be."
Pasqualoni, a workaholic who outwardly pays no attention to the tempest swirling about, and his staff face a challenge every year. They have to persuade recruits to come to a school located in the snowiest major city in the nation, where they train in aging facilities and play on an artificial turf field that has seen better days. The Carrier Dome has changed little since it opened in 1980 and actually serves as a recruiting tool for rival coaches, as do all those empty seats.
Recruiting is challenge
"Recruiting is more difficult because so many programs have made such a big commitment to this game," Pasqualoni said. "We have to improve our weight room. Weight rooms in this day and age are big, big issues in I-A football."
For the first time in years, Syracuse's athletic program has had to be subsidized by the university after being mostly self-sufficient.
Part of that is the result of the defection this season of the Big East's two biggest draws -- Miami and Virginia Tech -- to the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The university has begun a $155 million building program and former Syracuse players and alumni who have struck it rich in the NFL, such as McNabb and Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis, are being courted for contributions to the football program.
The Orange's four losses this season have been to ranked teams, which has only added to the discontent.
Reyes' view
A seven-win season likely would bring a bowl bid. Senior tailback Walter Reyes wants the jury to reserve its decision until the end of the season.
"Every program goes through their hard times," said Reyes, the school's No. 2 career rushing leader from Struthers.
"But I really don't think you should count us out. I think we should get a fair chance, and after the season, if you want to, say what you have to say."