Doug Marrone doesn’t spend time thinking about which bowl his team will play in at season’s end. He doesn’t lament the significance of what he, his staff and his players have accomplished at Syracuse this season.

The week-to-week rigors have kept him from doing that. Seemingly every week, the same words are uttered from his mouth: ‘We just need to keep moving forward with our nose to the grindstone.’

It’s not his nature to sit back and dwell on such things in the midst of competing for the Big East crown. This is the same guy who, during SU’s bye week, finally went back and looked at an album New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton made of a playoff run the Saints went on when Marrone was there four years ago.

‘There really isn’t a lot of time to talk to someone on the phone, e-mail, text or talk about the season, where it is going, what happened, what we’ve accomplished,’ Marrone said Monday. ‘We’re on to the next opponent — win or lose.’

Regardless of what happens Saturday against Connecticut — win or lose — what Marrone has restored at SU is quite remarkable, even if he is reluctant to acknowledge it at this point in the season. This weekend, the Orange can move into a tie for the lead in the Big East standings if it wins and Pittsburgh loses. That’s something few people outside the program ever envisioned back in August.

Marrone’s squad was projected to finish seventh in the conference in the preseason Big East poll. Ten weeks in, the Orange sits in second place in the conference and finished the season 4-0 on the road in the conference. SU has already locked up its best season since 2001 and will be headed to a bowl for the first time since 2004.

Exceeding expectations the way Marrone has this year usually leads to Coach of the Year talk. Though Marrone will undoubtedly balk at the notion, saying he’s just doing his job, he’s no doubt on the verge of getting serious consideration in both the Big East and nationally.

‘The sense is that I’m happy for the players, the seniors, people in the community, the faculty and the alumni,’ Marrone said. ‘I try to tell people all the time that I’m really just doing my job. I don’t look at it as being extraordinary. I’m doing what I was brought here to do.’

The fact is, in just his second year at the helm, Marrone is already exceeding outside expectations. As recently as this week, Marrone admitted he’s not surprised at the early success. After all, he’s just doing his job.

Part of that is convincing people to buy into what he’s doing at SU. And with each win, his concepts and principles are further solidified among those taking this ride with him.

‘Winning is important to him,’ fullback Adam Harris said. ‘But it’s important to him to build an all-around program, both on and off the field. … That’s something we’ve all bought into.’

The veteran players who have been around for the darker years of the program see the difference. Memories of the two-win and three-win seasons aren’t so distant. Perhaps that’s partially why what Marrone has already accomplished is so incredible. The Orange only won seven games in the previous two years. Nine games in the previous three years. And 14 games over the previous five years.

Since he took over last year, Marrone said he and his staff have been ‘winning battles’ here and there, though it doesn’t always show up in the win column. Now they do.

‘Everybody that is around the program, from the strength and conditioning coaches to all the assistant coaches, the equipment guys, it’s everybody in the program who has had a part in turning this program into a winning one,’ senior center Ryan Bartholomew said. ‘It starts with Coach Marrone.’

For the first time in years, the SU community is still talking about football three weeks into November. Instead of shifting attention to a local basketball team with Final Four aspirations, people are talking about a team that still has a chance to go to a BCS bowl.

And all this with two games still remaining.

Whether Marrone will admit it or not, that’s quite remarkable around here.

Andrew L. John is the sports editor at The Daily Orange, where his column appears occasionally. He can be reached at aljohn@syr.edu.

Published on November 18, 2010 at 12:00 pm