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The Syracuse Orange have their new athletic director: Bryan Blair.
D.A. is honest right away — Blair wasn’t his first choice. He originally hoped Syracuse would land Nick Carparelli.
But after digging into Blair’s résumé, experience, and vision, D.A. says Orange fans should actually feel optimistic about the future.
In classic D.A. fashion, this is a smart, detailed breakdown of why Blair could be the right leader for Syracuse at a critical moment — from navigating the NIL era to restoring momentum and tackling the biggest challenges facing the program.
If you’re an Orange fan worried about where Syracuse athletics is headed… this is the perspective you need to hear.
#Syracuse #BryanBlair #Cuse #CollegeSports #SyracuseOrange
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0:00
He wasn't my first choice for Syracuse's
0:02
new AD. However, I do think my school
0:06
ended up getting a really good new ad
0:10
in. I'll explain in just a moment. A
0:13
reminder, subscribe to the channel.
0:14
Click on this button below me. We've got
0:16
fresh videos every single day, including
0:19
football videos every day of the off
0:21
season. And if you're a Syracuse fan or
0:23
alum such as myself, this is the home
0:25
for complete Syracuse coverage of a
0:27
transitional time in the program's
0:29
history. Brian Blair has a lot of
0:33
qualities that I really like and I got
0:35
to hear a long form interview with him
0:38
from a couple of weeks ago when he was
0:40
still the AD at Toledo and I liked a lot
0:43
of what I heard. Frankly, my number one
0:46
choice was Nick Carparelli. Nick has
0:49
Syracuse ties, grad assistant in the9s
0:51
football program, huge Syracuse fan. He
0:55
knows the school. He knows the
0:57
limitations. He knows the the hurdles
0:59
you got to jump over to be great, but
1:01
also working within the bowl system,
1:05
director of the bowl system with all of
1:08
that revenue that you've got to manage,
1:10
sponsorships, event planning, bowl
1:13
tie-ins, how everything works around
1:16
college football's highest tiers. I
1:18
really like that from Nick. However,
1:21
Syracuse decided to hire Blair and as I
1:24
said, I kept an open mind and as I've
1:27
heard him speak and dug more into his
1:29
background, I really like what Brian
1:32
Blair brings to the table. Here's my
1:35
biggest qualifier for why Blair I think
1:39
is a tremendous candidate to take over.
1:43
He has significant
1:47
AD experience
1:50
coming into this role as he levels up in
1:53
his career. John Wild Hack had really
1:57
good intentions, a Syracuse grad, loved
2:00
the school, wanted it to do well. But in
2:04
today's college sports landscape, you
2:07
just can't have a guy who was a former
2:11
television executive step in and
2:13
understand
2:15
all of these crazy minations happening
2:17
in the sport and the sports world. You
2:20
have to have somebody who's already
2:22
navigated that.
2:25
In in Blair's case, he's kind of grown
2:28
up in the system. He's been tabbed as
2:30
almost an AD prodigy. He has worked
2:33
within multiple schools athletic
2:35
departments and then finally got his own
2:37
ad job for the first time when he got to
2:40
Toledo. So he has consistently seen all
2:44
of the layers that you need to navigate
2:46
and manage and then got his own ad role
2:50
before he got here and had success at
2:53
Toledo.
2:54
revenue generation, onfield success,
2:58
philanthropic causes,
3:00
teamwork, culture, confidence, hiring
3:04
coaches, all of this he has done. The
3:07
Syracuse ad job is just not a job in
3:10
2026 that can be your first job at it.
3:15
You have to understand the landscape to
3:18
a very sophisticated detail. I love that
3:21
about Blair. Number two, what I really
3:23
like about Blair,
3:26
he has done at Toledo and helped do at
3:30
other schools as an assistant in the
3:32
departments of significant revenue
3:35
generation.
3:37
And you have to understand this. It is
3:40
probably the most significant part of
3:44
running athletic departments by a long
3:46
shot. Beyond anything else, beyond
3:49
hires, beyond rosters, beyond
3:52
facilities, beyond travel, beyond
3:55
recruiting, beyond alumni relations,
3:58
beyond sponsor. You have to be able to
4:02
generate money coming in to pay players.
4:06
End of discussion. Forget the money for
4:09
everything else. You have to pay
4:11
players. So, however you maneuver that,
4:14
then after that, you're talking about
4:16
being competitive in coaches salaries,
4:19
being competitive in recruiting budgets,
4:21
being competitive in facilities and
4:24
those types of expenditures, but you
4:26
have to pay players. And what we've seen
4:28
is few and far between are the schools
4:32
that can do it on the shoestring budget
4:35
and keep making it work. If you want
4:37
consistent success, you've got to pay
4:39
for it. Now, that's just the end of the
4:41
discussion. So, the fact that Blair has
4:45
that as a real significant,
4:50
you know, advantage and strength is
4:53
massive.
4:54
And then I really like that Brian Blair
4:58
is a former player himself. You hear it
5:00
come out in his words how he speaks.
5:03
He's very smart athletic director should
5:06
normally be just all about the sports
5:08
world. No, you'll hear Brian speak
5:11
mostly in this kind of grander sense of
5:15
where the school works and sports fits
5:19
in. I think that larger scope is is
5:22
vital today. I will tell you, I think
5:25
Syracuse is starting to align the right
5:28
power visions from the new chancellor
5:31
who obviously is a sports person and
5:33
says we need high-profile sports for the
5:37
business side of the school. I think
5:38
that's just reality. I think today's
5:41
reality is if it's all a business and so
5:44
many schools are dealing with, you know,
5:47
enrollment issues and funding issues and
5:50
how much the cost is of attending and
5:53
students being in all types of debt
5:56
coming out. I think you have to
5:58
understand the business operation as a
6:00
whole and where sports operates within
6:04
the operation.
6:06
I think the new chancellor and I think
6:07
the new AD have two very I think robust
6:11
visions of that. I like that a lot. I
6:14
like that Brian Blair
6:17
speaks as though he's a captain in a
6:19
team huddle. I think that works. When
6:22
you're working within sports, you do
6:24
need teamwork like any corporate
6:25
atmosphere, but you're also trying to
6:28
capture the momentum of the energy of
6:30
what sports brings. And in college
6:33
athletics, you're trying to bring in
6:34
that youth aspect as well. That energy
6:36
that only courses through young people
6:39
and college sports. And I think when I
6:42
hear Blair, I hear him speak like a guy
6:45
that you'd want speaking in the huddle,
6:47
speaking in the locker room in a really
6:50
good way. Like that's natural
6:51
leadership. That's a guy that
6:53
understands how everything has to work
6:55
in unison. How a team only moves forward
6:58
if everybody does their job well. And
7:01
you've got to get the most out of other
7:03
people in other departments for this
7:05
thing to work. What I heard from Blair
7:07
is not about me, it's about this, it's
7:10
about you. It's about how can we
7:11
activate you, you, you, you, you. I
7:14
think a lot of ads because they get in a
7:16
position of power and they seek power
7:18
and influence
7:20
really end up making it about themselves
7:22
and their ego and I'll prove to you I'm
7:26
worth it or you need to do what I say
7:28
because I'm the boss. I didn't hear
7:31
that. I haven't heard that at all from
7:32
Blair. To me, he's a connector. He's a
7:34
unifier. I really like that a lot. So,
7:37
while he doesn't have Syracuse ties, I'm
7:40
okay with that. That's no problem. It is
7:42
a very unique landscape. Syracuse is a
7:45
unique situation. I think a lot of
7:46
people think that Syracuse is a public
7:48
school with a massive enrollment. It is
7:50
not. It's a private school. I think a
7:52
lot of people think that Syracuse's
7:54
brand is tarnished permanently. I do
7:56
not. I think it can be restored.
7:58
However, it's going to take a lot of
7:59
work. I think people assume Syracuse big
8:02
brand, really big donors, really big
8:05
money. What we've seen to this point is
8:07
that's not necessarily the case either.
8:09
That all of these pieces have to work
8:11
together. And maybe the reality hasn't
8:13
matched the perception. And I will just
8:16
end with one other thing, and I think
8:19
I'll probably do a different video on
8:21
this as well.
8:22
Whoever Brian hires to be the next head
8:27
coach at Syracuse for men's basketball
8:31
needs to stop with excusem because there
8:34
was a lot of that on Agent Autry's way
8:36
out the door.
8:39
Autry admitted he was behind the times
8:42
on NIL, behind the times of the transfer
8:45
portal, that specifically NIL needed to
8:49
be better. On his way out, Jim Beaheim
8:53
cited the NIL and cited how the best
8:56
players of the team did not play well.
8:59
And I I think it could be easy for
9:01
Beahheim and Autry to say it's not us,
9:04
it's you. And I don't think that's the
9:07
right atmosphere and the right direction
9:09
for this program. It needs to be a
9:11
reckoning of what did we not do well
9:14
enough? Us. Let's look in the mirror.
9:16
Us. What did we not do? We did not
9:20
coach. We did not stack the good enough
9:21
roster. It didn't fit together properly.
9:24
It wasn't motivated properly. The
9:26
schemes were not right. We didn't we
9:28
didn't get more donorship for whatever
9:30
reason. We have to have better
9:31
relationships with X, Y, or Z. We need
9:34
this, that, the other thing. There's a
9:37
lot of me that has to happen in this
9:39
Syracuse reckoning. And I hope that the
9:42
new chancellor and Brian Blair are aware
9:45
of that and accept that and understand
9:47
that. Thanks for watching everybody. I'm
9:50
DA Damon Amandelar, Syracuse class of
9:52
2001. I appreciate you watching. plenty
9:54
more videos like this. So, make sure you
9:56
are subscribed and you can always watch
9:58
anything and read anything about the
10:00
upcoming Syracuse changes as we cover
10:02
things on my website, theorangfizz.com.
10:06
I've owned it for a million years. You
10:07
should check it out if you haven't
10:09
already. Appreciate you watching. I'm
10:10
DA. See you next time.