While speaking with local media yesterday, Syracuse Orange Coach Dino Babers reiterated that he thinks SU will be excelling by game four to six next year. When he arrived, the timeline was about a year-and-a-half to really get things cooking with his offensive system. On today’s ACC coach’s teleconference, he expressed confidence that all’s going as planned:
Even though he’s not getting ahead of himself on this weekend’s final game vs. Pittsburgh, he’s also well aware of what extra practices could mean, should Syracuse sneak into a bowl game at 5-7.
Doubt Dino has to push all that hard for SU to go to a bowl game should they qualify at 5-7. That may be the case for some schools like Notre Dame or UCLA (they may have actually declined at 6-6 while he was there). But for the Orange, who have rarely sniffed a bowl game in the last decade, we’ll take what we can get.
In any case, though, this second quote points back to the first. The offensive line, in particular, could use some more time in the system and perfecting it. While many of the current O-linemen were reserves heading into the year, they won’t be in the future. Reducing the learning curve is critical to cutting down the difficult mistakes we’ve seen this year, and also keeping Eric Dungey upright and healthy.
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As a quick note, apropos of nothing, should Syracuse arrive at the early end of Babers’s timeline of game four to six next year, that’s the LSU game...