Syracuse fired Dino Babers following a 31-22 loss to Georgia Tech, marking the end of his nearly eight-season tenure with the Orange.

Immediately, the coaching search kicked off. On Monday, ESPN's Pete Thamel reported that the school had whittled the search down to three candidates: Toledo Head Coach Jason Candle, Holy Cross Head Coach Bob Chesney and Georgia defensive backs coach Fran Brown.

Bruce Feldman took it a step further, claiming that Brown is the leading candidate for the job. Whoever takes the job is stepping into a tough position.

The school letting go of Babers came as no surprise. There was buzz all season that he was on the hot seat and his record was far from stellar, 41-55 overall and 2-11 in the month of November since 2020. He also struggled to develop the offensive line, find depth in the transfer portal and recruit a quarterback to excel in his offensive system. There were plenty of reasons to fire Babers.

At the same time, it is far from a guarantee Chesney, Brown or Candle will fare better in leading the program going forward. Under Babers, the Orange posted their first double-digit win season in 17 years, knocked off Clemson, and reached back-to-back bowl games for the first time since 2012-13. Technically, Babers will not be the coach for this second bowl game in a row, but this was his team.

Babers was not great, but he did well considering how tough it is to win in modern college football at a place like Syracuse. It is hard to build a winner in CNY. Over the past two recruiting cycles, one prospect in the Rivals 250 was from the state of New York. Three were from New Jersey. Those are easily the two biggest pipeline states for this program. It doesn't help that 'Cuse didn't land any of those four prospects either.

Wildhack admitted that he fired Babers after it became clear that SU would not win seven games this season. When asked for clarification as to the difference between a six-win season and a seven-win season season, he waffled before ultimately dodging the question.

I'm not trying to say that Dino was without fault, but it is hard for me to feel like he was doing a bad job. Building stability is a huge step for most programs. Whoever the new coach is should benefit in at least some small way from the steps Babers took in raising Syracuse's floor.

Brown, Candle or Chesney face a monumental task in turning this program into one that regularly wins seven or more games every season. Since 2000, Syracuse has won at least seven games just five times. Babers was responsible for two of those seven-win seasons. He might have added another one this year if he were allowed to stick around for the regular-season finale and posted a win in a bowl game.

SU is non-competitive in NIL, is not located in a fertile recruiting area and is possibly the worst of the remaining Power 4 conferences. The ACC might beat out the Big 12 sans Texas and Oklahoma. Bottom line: this is not an overly attractive job. ESPN's Adam Rittenberg ranked it ninth out of the current nine openings or recently filled power conference jobs.

For fans to expect anything more out of this program, Wildhack either needs to hit a home run with this hire to spark it or find some new revenue sources to revitalize it. The former feels more realistic, but that is still a tough task.

Perhaps Chesney's deep ties to the area allow him to build a winner. Maybe Candle will thrive on a bigger stage if he comes over from Toledo. Conceivably, Brown could be the up-and-coming superstar to turn things around. Coaching searches always feed fans hope. I hate to pour cold water on the excitement, I'm just a bit hesitant to buy in quite yet.

Long-term, I love the potential for adding Brown. He coached at Temple and Rutgers, giving him meaningful ties to key recruiting areas for the Orange. He also spent the past two seasons learning under the best coach in college football with Kirby Smart at Georgia.

There are clear drawbacks for Brown. He only has one year where he held a coordinator title, which was when he was the co-defensive coordinator at Temple.

That lack of experience is going to lead a steep learning curve for him when it comes to running a program, but the hope is that he would lead to better recruiting success while ideally leaning on some more experienced coordinators.

I am aware that I am falling directly into the trap I just warned everyone to avoid. This underlines my point: it is hard to not feel hopefully in the midst of a fresh start.

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