Greg Robinson, a two-time Super Bowl champion and former co-defensive coordinator for the Texas Longhorns, is the new head coach of the Syracuse football team.Incoming Director of Athletics Daryl Gross made the announcement Tuesday, just 13 days after he announced Paul Pasqualoni would not return to Syracuse, where he had spent 14 seasons as head coach. Robinson, 53, spent last season with the Longhorns after coaching for 14 years in the NFL. He was the Denver Broncos’ defensive coordinator during their back-to-back Super Bowl wins in 1997 and 1998.

‘I’ve been waiting 30 years for this,’ Robinson said. The new job is his first head coaching position. Before moving to the NFL, the Los Angeles native coached college football for 15 years, including seven seasons at UCLA.

Robinson will also act as SU’s defensive coordinator. He said he will aim for an aggressive defensive style and an offense that balances its running and passing games.

The decision ends what Gross called an ‘extensive, thorough, national search’ for Pasqualoni’s replacement, one that seems to have started prior to the Dec. 29 firing. Robinson said the search committee contacted him ‘right after the bowl game situation,’ referring to SU’s 51-14 loss to Georgia Tech in the Champs Sports Bowl on Dec. 21.

‘I’m exhausted,’ Gross said as he apologized to reporters for not returning phone calls from his office in Los Angeles. Robinson interviewed there with Gross on Friday, and accepted the job yesterday.

‘This moved pretty quick here,’ Robinson said.

The AD and his newest coach became friends during Robinson’s ’90-’94 tenure with the New York Jets, and Gross seemed particularly jubilant as he announced the hire. His smile beamed as he introduced Robinson, and the two shared a big hug when the coach approached the podium.

Barely a word had left Robinson’s mouth when Gross bounced back into the spotlight and plopped a bright orange SU hat on the coach’s head, ‘to make it official.’ Robinson politely declined to wear it during his speech, which included a stand-up routine about Chancellor Nancy Cantor’s secret talents on the gridiron.

Over and over, Robinson praised the Syracuse community as a ‘family.’

‘You can feel his passion,’ he said of Gross, ‘and it’s very exciting to me.’

Robinson now has about three weeks to hire his staff before National Signing Day, the first day recruits can commit to SU in writing for next season. Robinson said he’s looking for coaches that share the qualities he sees in Gross and Cantor: energy, enthusiasm and integrity. He also said he’s not afraid to woo coaches away from other schools, even if they’re not actively looking for a new job.

Since Pasqualoni’s firing, associate head coach George DeLeone has left Syracuse for a job at Mississippi, and running backs coach David Walker has accepted a position at Pittsburgh. Robinson declined to speculate whether he would keep any of the current assistants on staff, but he said his search will start ‘right here on campus.’

‘It’s the right thing to do,’ he said.

To recruits who verbally committed under the Pasqualoni regime, Robinson said, ‘I would ask them to be patient for a short period of time while I take care of in-house business.’

Some recruits said they were shocked at Pasqualoni’s firing, and at least one said the move had cast doubt upon his verbal commitment.

‘I was feeling good that I committed to the right school, but now this and I don’t even know,’ Cordarrow Thompson, a defensive tackle from North Stafford High School in Virginia, said in the days after Pasqualoni’s departure. It remains to be seen how Robinson and his staff will affect SU’s recruiting process.

As for the current players, only a handful of them were in Syracuse today to meet their new head coach. Running back Damien Rhodes and free safety Anthony Smith, both juniors, expressed confidence in Robinson and big hopes for next season.

‘He’s a champion from the defensive side,’ Rhodes said. ‘That makes it very clear that we can be champions.’

Robinson brandished his 1998 Super Bowl ring at the news conference – ‘I might wear it tomorrow, too,’ he said. And he laid out his strategy to bring great success to Syracuse, which he characterized as a ‘stable’ program.

‘Someday this program is going to be a model of excellence for a lot of schools,’ Robinson said.

He said he’ll build that program on a foundation of trust, discipline and perseverance, and pledged to have fun at the same time. Robinson said he’ll build an offense that balances running with a strong passing game and that he’d bring his aggressive defense to SU.

Robinson said his experience with the Jets, the Broncos and most recently the Kansas City Chiefs has been invaluable – but he has also rekindled his love for coaching college.

‘I’ve always dreamed to be a head football coach,’ he said. ‘Quite frankly, it was always to be a college coach.’

Published on January 10, 2005 at 12:00 pm