Syracuse hires Mark Coyle from Boise State as new athletic director
Mark Coyle is going from blue turf to all orange everything.
Syracuse announced Friday that Coyle has been hired as the school's new athletic director, plucking him from Boise State.
Coyle will have quite a job on his hands as he looks to clean up the mess Daryl Gross left behind. Gross resigned from the post in March after the school's athletic department got hit with what they believed were "unduly harsh" sanctions in response to academic fraud and improper benefits. Gross remains with the school as vice president and special assistant to chancellor Kent Syverud, who announced the hiring Friday:
Mark has an outstanding record as a director of athletics and is known throughout the country for his professional accomplishments. His strong academic values and commitment to the welfare of student-athletes, combined with his record of achievement in fundraising, make him the right person to lead Syracuse University Athletics forward at this important time for the University.
It's a nice hire for optics following the academic fraud charges, as Boise State has consistently been among the elite for athlete GPA records. The school also won 12 conference championships in Coyle's nearly four years on the job, and he was lauded for his success fundraising.
He'll inherit a football program that isn't in the best of shape and a basketball team that not only has scholarship limitations, but will also need a new head coach in three years. The football team finished 3-9 last season and 1-7 in the ACC, the seventh time they've finished below .500 in the last 11 years. The basketball team made the Round of 64 in the NCAA tournament and went to the Final Four the year prior, but things will grow tougher from here.
Coyle will also have to address questions regarding the future of the Carrier Dome.
"Syracuse is a special place. I think sometimes when you're in Syracuse and you're in it day in and day out, you sometimes lose sight of what this program represents nationally and internationally," said Coyle in Monday's press conference. "When this opportunity became open, I can't tell you how quickly I picked up the phone and called Glenn (Sugiyama, from the search firm DHR International), because I knew this was a special place.
"It's a special place because of its history and tradition."
He leaves the Boise State athletic department in good shape for whomever his successor may be. The football side went 12-2, winning the Mountain West Conference and the Fiesta Bowl in 2014, while the basketball team made the NCAA tournament for the second time in three years.
As positive as this may be for Syracuse, it could be bad news for the one-month-old who recently received a scholarship offer from the school. Coyle doesn't have a track record of signing toddlers.