What's A Marrone?

Other than a severe aversion to Notre Dame, the staff at We Want Marangi admits to possessing precious little knowledge about college football, so we are going to reserve comment on the apparent hiring of Syracuse's Doug Marrone as Buffalo's new head coach.

(As of Sunday morning, the Bills haven't made any announcements, but the Buffalo News and ESPN are reporting a deal is imminent.)

Except to note that the decision, if it's been made, represents a marked shift from the Bills' past hiring practices. Lou Saban, John Rauch, Chuck Knox, Marv Levy, Wade Phillips, Dick Jauron and Chan Gailey all had prior experience as a professional head coach. Joe Collier, Jim Ringo, Kay Stephenson and Hank Bullough were all high-ranking assistants with the Bills before assuming the top job, while Gregg Williams and Mike Mularkey were successful coordinators elsewhere in the NFL, and Buster Ramsey was an esteemed assistant with a championship team in Detroit before becoming Buffalo's first head coach.

That makes Marrone the first college head coach the Bills have selected for their top job. It also reinforces the idea that Buddy Nix is sticking around to help his eventual replacement as general manager, Doug Whaley, through the process of finding Chan Gailey's replacement and April's draft before easing into retirement.

Marrone was an NFL assistant for seven years before taking over at Syracuse, including three seasons as the offensive coordinator in New Orleans, during which the Saints offense finished first, fourth and first in total yards. Sean Payton has been the primary offensive strategist during his tenure in New Orleans, but working with the most consistently explosive offense outside of New England isn't the worst experience to have on a resume.

So Buffalo's new head coach is a 48-year-old who has run innovative offenses at the professional and college levels and turned around a program saturated with mediocrity. The Orange were 10-37 in the four seasons before hiring Marrone and 26-57 over the last seven. Marrone's teams went 25-25, capped by an 8-5 mark this year and a 38-14 win over West Virginia in last month's New Era Pinstripe Bowl.

This is definitely not the type of hire you would expect of Nix, who chose an out-of-work Gailey rather than consider anyone without NFL head-coaching experience the last time around. Or Ralph Wilson, for that matter, who had final say over every previous coaching move.

Whatever the process, this hire is the first signature decision for Brandon since succeeding Wilson, and for Whaley as GM-in-waiting.

No question, it's different than what has happened in the past.

Better? We'll see.