Bud Poliquin did us all a favor Thursday and just dumped a whole slew of great Dino Babers quotes from his appearance on "Bud & The Manchild" to discuss National Signing Day. Let's pick out the best ones as we get a chance to get to know the Syracuse Orange football coach a bit better.
Would he ever sleep over at a recruits house like Jim Harbaugh:
"The sleepover thing … I don't know if that's a good thing for me. I've talked to Coach (Jim Harbaugh) a few times, and he's unique. There's no doubt about it. But, heck, I'm up at 3 o'clock in the morning and I'm normally going to bed at 9:30. They'd probably think I'm a little bit weird that they're all asleep and I'm walking around the house at 3 a.m. thinking about football."
On Janet Jacksons' infamous halftime performance (I would love to know how this came up):
"I don't want you to think that I'm rude and crude or nasty or bad, but I can still remember the Janet Jackson halftime thing. Stay with me. I was at my brother-in-law's house with my father-in-law and a whole bunch of guys, and I totally missed it. My wife was with the girls somewhere else and she called and told me about it. And I'm, like, 'That didn't happen. That didn't happen. I was watching the game.' And she was, like, 'Yes, it did.' I never saw it happen live. So I can't be at a party where there's so much going on that I can't sit back and watch the game. It's not because of Janet Jackson, but I have to be able to sit back and enjoy the game and enjoy the doggone commercials."
On what he tells recruits when it comes to how important their choice is:
"One of the things I try to get across to the young men in recruiting is that this is the very last time that you're going to get to pick who's going to coach you. When you go to a high school, you go to that high school because you live in a certain area, for the most part. So you don't get to pick the high-school coach. Your mom and dad pick a house in the area and you're normally going to play football in that area unless you get a chance to go to a parochial school, and then you don't get to pick the coach. It's whoever the coach is at the parochial school.
On what the sign of a really good coach is:
"So many times you see guys say, 'Oh, that guy's a fantastic coach. He's coached a five-star, a five-star, a five-star, a four-star, a five-star. God, he's one of the best coaches in America.' I'm more interested in the guy that coaches two-stars and no-stars and they're able to compete with those guys who get all the five-stars."
On how he looks for recruits who may or may not be Skywalkers:
"(A 'Babers kind of recruit/player' is) different. I think not the norm. Somebody that's not average. Somebody that is OK to be outside the box. When you say, 'The Force,' they get it. 'The Force' is strong in that person. Whatever 'The Force' is, they get it. And someone that's very, very competitive — not only on the football field, but in the classroom. Someone that's going to try to do right."
On the Academy Awards and whether or not they should be boycotted due to a lack of minority nominations.
"I should really stay away from it. But I'm a little aggressive when it comes to my movies, so let me say three things:
"First all of all, the Academy Award-winning movies that are up, I haven't had the opportunity to see yet because of football. Which is not like me.
"No. 2, I don't think you should boycott anything. They picked the movies. Let's go to the Academies and see what the movies are all about. I'm not really about the boycott scene.
"And the third thing is, hey, let's go out and make a better movie and see if we can't get better representation. I think that's critical, but I don't think that's the main part or the goal. You've gotta look at a person's long track record and over the long track record, I think the Academies have been fair, in my opinion."
On why he's rooting for the Broncos this weekend in the Super Bowl:
"I told you, I don't watch the NFL. So I haven't watched the NFL enough. My guy, Cam (Newton), he looks mighty good. And the Panthers are playing mighty, mighty well. But I've always been a Manning fan. And it started with Archie Manning. That's how old I am. He may have been the best one — better than his sons, and nobody knows that. Archie was the man.
"All that being said, I don't pick teams because I don't watch them enough. But I do have a very close friend that I coached with at Baylor University, Brian Norwood. And his son, Jordan, is the inside slot for the Denver Broncos. He's like a nephew to me. Therefore, I'm going with the Broncos because of a previous relationship with his dad."