Syracuse head football coach Greg Robinson completed his staff when he promoted Brian White to offensive coordinator and hired Phil Earley as quarterbacks coach in a news conference at the Iocolano-Petty Football Complex on Monday afternoon.

The announcement ended weeks of speculation that White, hired as quarterbacks coach on Jan. 23, would be elevated to the post following the departure of former offensive coordinator Brian Pariani on Jan 30. White had served as offensive coordinator at Wisconsin for the past seven seasons.

While White is well known to the SU community because his brother Chris has been on the Orange’s staff in various positions for the last nine years, Earley is more of a mystery. SU marks Earley’s 10th different school in his 20-year coaching career. He has held either the offensive coordinator or quarterbacks coach position at nearly every stop. He spent last season as an offensive assistant at Auburn, which uses a version of the West Coast Offense.

Robinson said experience in the West Coast Offense was a major reason for the hires. Though Syracuse finished 105th out of 117 Division I teams on offense last season, White said there will be few changes to the laymen’s eyes. He said Wisconsin’s offense was similar to the one former offensive coordinator Brian Pariani brought from the Denver Broncos, especially the zone-blocking running scheme. The difference, White said, would be execution.

‘When you implement the new offense, particularly one as intricate and complicated as the West Coast Offense, it takes time,’ White said. ‘You will see tremendous strides and progress from year one to year two.’

Robinson said he considered many candidates for the position but no one was as impressive as the one in-house.

‘The longer I looked at it, the clearer it became that I didn’t need to go anywhere,’ Robinson said. ‘I had a person that I think is very capable of taking over the offensive reins here.’

Though White said he had not been hired as offensive coordinator until Monday morning, he implied he was involved in the decision with Robinson to hire Earley. Both White and Robinson were impressed by the attention to fundamentals and discipline that marked Earley at his previous jobs, especially at the quarterback position.

‘Phil has also been (an offensive) coordinator for many years, but he’s been a quarterback coach,’ Robinson said. ‘In talking to people, I think that’s been his strength.’

Earley said he had other options on the table but jumped at the chance to come to Syracuse. The quarterback position at Syracuse has been permanently unsolved since Donovan McNabb graduated in 1999. Last season didn’t prove to be any different as both Perry Patterson and Joe Fields struggled. Next year, highly touted freshman recruit Andrew Robinson will be added to the mix. Earley said one of his biggest challenges will be dealing with a senior like Patterson as opposed to a freshman such as Robinson.

‘I think what you do is try to change packages,’ Earley said. ‘The package for Andrew (Robinson) is going to be much smaller, and that’s the best that you want him to understand. You still need to talk to him about the stuff that Perry might be looking at, but if he doesn’t get it, it’s not a big deal. At the end of the day I’m going to say to Andrew, ‘Do you know this much?’ And we’ll move on when he’s ready to move on.’

Andrew Robinson said Earley called him on Monday night. Former quarterbacks coach Major Applewhite was one factor that Robinson signed at SU, and Robinson was glad to hear from Earley right away to start establishing a relationship.

‘I know he has a lot of experience and that’s important,’ Andrew Robinson said. ‘He’s probably seen a lot of quarterbacks like me come and go and he knows what works and what doesn’t.’

Before the year at Auburn, Earley spent one season as offensive coordinator and quarterback coach at Ohio. The Bobcats finished 106th in total offense that season. From 2000-03, he held both positions at Nevada, where he was more successful. The Wolfpack featured the nation’s leading rusher in 2001 and leading receiver in 2002. His other stops include Idaho, Cincinnati, Washington State, Western Washington, Weber State and Cal Poly.

The final ingredient for Robinson in hiring White and Earley was the cohesiveness he saw between them. After all, they will now be the two most-critiqued assistant coaches because the offense, in particular the passing game, was to blame for last season’s 1-10 debacle.

‘I didn’t talk much about this at all, but I thought it was important to watch the relationship between Brian (White) and some of the other coaches on offense with the coach that was being interviewed,’ Robinson said. ‘I watched how Phil and Brian really did a good job. You could see they just meshed and the way that they communicated, they were on the same page.’

Published on February 13, 2006 at 12:00 pm