MORGANTOWN - West Virginia University football coach Bill Stewart has been on both ends of the coaching spectrum, taking over a struggling football team and trying to even the keel and assuming the reins of a successful program and trying to keep the momentum going.

"It's a lot easier if you have bullets in the holster," Stewart said about the latter scenario. "But it's a lot more fun and a lot less stress when you're not supposed to do well and you are."

That's why Stewart appreciates what new Syracuse coach Doug Marrone has done through the first five games this season. The Orange, 2-3 overall and 0-1 in the Big East Conference, are starting to return to the form that gave the program its rich heritage.

"I see young men straining, playing hard and running to the ball," Stewart said. "Doug's done a tremendous job. He's got a great staff, people that want to be at Syracuse, and they've got the players believing."

Marrone said he has been preparing for this job ever since making the decision to become a coach after hanging up the pads following a two-year stint in the National Football League and another two years playing with the NFL Europe's London Monachs.

"When I tell you I'm excited about this job, it's beyond that," said Marrone, who started three years as an offensive lineman at Syracuse from 1983-85. "When I tell you I've dreamed about it, it's beyond that. This is the vision I've always had."

Marrone said he began preparing himself for the top job at Syracuse when he took his first job at Cortland State, and he kept that focus even while serving as an offensive coordinator for the New Orleans Saints.

"Every decision I've made along that way, I was thinking to myself, 'Am I making the right decision so that one day I could come back to Syracuse University?'" he said. "In my heart, I knew I was the best person for this job to get us back to where we want to be. I've always been part of this program, but now I have a chance to do something with it. It's a family, and we're all in this together."

Syracuse hosts the Mountaineers at noon Saturday in a Big East Conference game at the Carrier Dome. The field is being renamed in honor of another member of the Syracuse football family, Ernie Davis.

The naming, "Ernie Davis Legends Field," is in honor of the 1961 Heisman Trophy winner and the subject of the 2008 film, "The Express."