Syracuse coach Doug Marrone said last week, before Cincinnati’s Saturday game, that he hoped the Bearcats rolled over Louisville and then rolled right into Syracuse undefeated. This week, Marrone said Cincinnati may just be THE best team in the country and that his team is excited (his word) to play them.

No, Marrone hasn’t had some magical roster overhaul and no, that 14th toughest-schedule-in-the-country isn’t making the first-year coach loopy. Of course, Marrone didn’t make the schedule and so it makes sense to try and silver-line it. Still, yesterday, on his weekly teleconference, Marrone said if he’d had his druthers, he might’ve picked a road almost as tough. Because it tells him a lot about his players.

“I like seeing how much we can deal with adversity, the ups and downs, the pressure… knowing we have to execute at a higher level,” he said. “I think I’d rather start that way rather than go the opposite way. I like operating that way.”

It makes sense that a lot of this year is feeling out his team and identifying the core as it stands now. So I asked if, seven games in, it’s now time to start looking to the future and maybe playing players now who’ll potentially have a bigger role next year now. Like maybe swapping redshirt freshman QB Ryan Nassib for grad student Greg Paulus.

“The future for me,” he said, “is this week. Especially with the game that we have.”

And if he doesn’t really mean that, he sure did a good job selling it. Sure he’s laying a foundation and building a program, and yes, Syracuse has won exactly three league games in the last five years. But Marrone was sincerely talking about how much his program needs a bowl berth. This winter.

“We haven’t been to a bowl game in four years,” he said. ”We haven’t practiced as much as any of these other teams. Which, all of them in the Big East, have gone to bowl games. So they get, I don’t know 15-20 extra days of work… They’ve had an extra cycle each year. What I mean by cycle is spring ball, season, bowl game. That’s one of the things that hurts in the development of our football team.”

That’s totally true and I remember Greg Schiano talking about the program really taking off after having that first set of extra practices in 2005. Add all those bowl practices over a course of a career and it’s almost like having an extra season of training.

So, is Syracuse’s future this year? 

The Orange is 3-4 with five games to go and three wins needed for bowl eligibility. I think coming away with a W this weekend, even if these kids played their best game, isn’t in the probable realm. Then Syracuse goes to Pittsburgh. Again, not an easy road. But then the Orange are at doormat Louisville (currently 2-5 and by then perhaps led by an officially lame duck coach), host an as-yet unspectacular Rutgers (3-2 against FBS teams) and close things out at UConn (4-3). What do you think?