As the color analyst for ESPN’s noon telecasts throughout the 2010 NCAA football season, Brian Griese was in the booth for what was arguably Syracuse’s most impressive win of the year — a 19-14 victory over West Virginia on Oct. 23. On Thursday, he will be back in the booth for SU’s most important game of the year — the New Era Pinstripe Bowl against Kansas State, which will air on ESPN at 3:20 p.m. Thursday.

The Daily Orange caught up with Griese Monday to discuss his thoughts on the game. In this installment, Griese talks about his overall thoughts of the Orange, the state of the Big East and the overall atmosphere that will come with the first bowl in Yankee Stadium since 1962.

The Daily Orange: What are your overall thoughts of this team, in its second season under head coach Doug Marrone, coming into the Pinstripe Bowl?

Brian Griese: Well, I had their game earlier in the year against West Virginia, which was a big win for them. They had been playing well. They were 4-2 coming into that game. They had just gotten blown out by Pittsburgh. But they went on the road and played really well defensively.

Everybody has been talking about their defense — a top-5 defense. I think Scott Shafer has done an excellent job with that defense. It’s a confusing style. He’s got a myriad of blitzes — zone blitzes, man blitzes, confusion. He’s got probably, by far, the best linebacking corps in the Big East. And I think (Doug) Hogue is an NFL-type player. And he’s the guy that really drives that engine. They have some players up front that do some things. And corners that can play well in the back end. Their success this year has been on defense.

On offense, they’ve been kind of pedestrian. The last month of the season, it has been kind of difficult and boring to watch, man. They stumbled down the stretch. Talking with Coach Marrone, it’s kind of a combination of things — getting worn down, not having a lot of depth. They’ve had a month now to get healthy, and they’re as healthy as they’ve been all year on offense, so hopefully they can move the ball, throw it around a little bit, get it to Delone (Carter) and let him run with it.

Two years ago, Syracuse football wasn’t even on the map nationally. And now, the team is going into Yankee Stadium for the inaugural Pinstripe Bowl. How impressed have you been with the overall turnaround of the program?

B.G.: Well, you can’t say enough about Doug Marrone and what he’s been able to do. That place was so far down. I know Greg Robinson pretty well, and I know how bad it got there. For it to be in that state, I really thought it was going to take a Syracuse guy to bring it back. And I think Doug approached it in the right way. Before he talked about Xs and Os and all that, he talked about attitude and respecting the past and learning from the past. And building for the future.

It all started there with him. He’s got the background football-wise — the mentality from the NFL and being with Sean Payton in New Orleans, and a bunch of different systems. He understands what it takes to win, what it looks like and the attitude that you need. I think that was the biggest thing. Picking everybody’s heads up and saying, ‘You aren’t as bad as everybody says you are. You’ve got to learn to respect yourself, believe in yourself and go out and expect to win, not hope to win.’ That’s been the biggest difference, I think.

The Big East was widely perceived as perhaps the worst BCS conference of the nation’s six. What are your thoughts of the state of the conference overall and how weak it was this year?

B.G.: They struggled. It’s been well documented this year. I think the reason that everybody jumped on the Big East was that there was really no offense in that league. I don’t know whether there was no offense or the defenses were so much better, but it was a difficult conference to cover as an analyst.

I think that there are certainly schools with tradition (in the Big East). Having West Virginia be down on a year, and Cincinnati being down after losing Coach (Brian) Kelly and Pitt having some flashes and ultimately getting rid of their coach, there are some schools that should be better than what they were this year. For UConn to come through in the end in upset fashion after starting so badly and now be the representative for the conference in the BCS doesn’t do the conference any favors.

I think in the future you will see some more regulation with respect to teams getting into the BCS championship. I would love to see the team that is the representative have to at least be in the top 20 in the country. That would ensure that you get a game in the BCS and the Fiesta Bowl that would be more representative of a BCS game. But as it stands, we’ll see how Oklahoma does with UConn.

How exciting will the overall scene be at Yankee Stadium for these players, and how will that scene affect the game?

B.G.: I think it’s going to be a great scene. These kids that are coming from Kansas State, a lot of them have never been to New York. All the guys that play at Syracuse have been to New York and understand what it’s all about. So you may see some wide eyes from these kids from Kansas — from Wichita, Topeka and places like that, walking into this stadium probably having never been to Yankee Stadium. So that could be an advantage for Syracuse.

Certainly, it will be a spectacle. For Syracuse to be so close to him and Doug Marrone with his history with the Yankees and his father, it should be a good scene.

bplogiur@syr.edu

Published on December 26, 2010 at 12:00 pm