Most weeks Dino Babers enters his Monday morning press conference and immediately asks for questions. Monday, after SU’s 27-23 loss at Clemson, he approached the podium with an index card and spoke for nearly two minutes.

To start, he announced long snapper Matt Keller will be out for the season. Keller was seen with a sling on his arm after the loss Saturday.

Then Babers shifted his tone. He expressed his pride in Syracuse’s effort against the now No. 4 Tigers. But he didn’t want to look back any longer.

“We have to move on from that game,” Babers said. “We can’t finish and reach our goals if we keep looking back to the past. And I know that you have questions to ask and I’ll answer those questions.”

The questions came. After the reviewing the film, Babers was more specific as to why SU couldn’t hang onto its 10-point fourth quarter lead.  

First, he mentioned three first downs in the second half. “That’s not enough,” he said. Then, he brought up the 96-yard Clemson drive which ended in a game-winning touchdown, which used too much clock.

Lastly, he questioned himself. He said the two plays he had “50-50” decisions on timeouts came on Clemson’s 4th-and-6 from its own 48 and before the final touchdown of the game. Babers noted he didn’t call a timeout before the 4th-and-6 because he didn’t want to give the “rookie” quarterback Chase Brice and opportunity to talk through the play with his coaches. He wanted to challenge Brice to do it on his own.

Before the final touchdown, Babers contemplated giving the defense a break because of the play count building up against his team on the drive, but he didn’t pull the trigger.

“Those are my two 50-50s,”  Babers said. “I’m not saying they’re wrong. It was just ‘hey, 50-50 make a call.’”

“So there was a lot of stuff going on,” Babers continued while cracking a smile. “But it was one heck of a game wasn’t it? It really was.”

Later, Babers compared his team to Clemson last year. He praised the Tigers: “the big thing Clemson didn’t do last year, is they didn’t let Syracuse beat them twice.” He added Syracuse needs to do the same this year. The best thing for SU is to turn the page, he added.

“I don’t think they’re occasional,” Babers said of his team. “But we have to prove it. And this an opportunity right now to prove it. We’ve had a setback it’s our first one of the year. Now, what are we going to do now?”

Other notes from Monday’s presser

• When asked if he considers Clemson a rival of SU, Babers opted to list Boston College as the Orange’s rival. He added: “If you want to find out where you are as a football team, playing (Clemson) you normally do.”
• Babers on Pittsburgh: “They have two big backs they run the football with. They believe in running the football. I’ve coached at that university and they’re a bunch of tough guys that like to grind it out and pound and lean on you. And we just saw what happened to us in the last game when someone decided to do that.”
• When asked about the health of Antwan Cordy, who left Saturday’s game in a sling, and Chris Elmore Babers said, “Both of those guys will be fine. Both of them will be in the next game.”

Published on October 1, 2018 at 12:51 pm

Contact Josh: jlschafe@syr.edu | @Schafer_44