Dino Babers calls Eric Dungey beautiful (and more from ACC Football Kickoff)

Syracuse Orange QB Eric Dungey was one of our two player representatives at this year’s ACC Football Kickoff in Charlotte. And while he had plenty to say during his own media availability, we have to get to what Orange head coach Dino Babers said about him first:

So you heard it from Babers first. If you’re going out on the town and looking for a date, don’t bring Dungey with you. He’s too beautiful for this world (and your evening).

Moving past Eric’s good looks (though he’s not the heir apparent to Charley Loeb just yet), the junior quarterback shared his own thoughts on SU’s offense and more.

Dungey likes Moe Neal

“Yeah, Moe Neal, he's a great kid. He's put on some weight so he's looking good. Excited. Coach will tell you more about him (he did), but he can play any position, basically. He'll even say he can play quarterback, but he's a great athlete, so I'm looking forward to him, and he's made a lot of mental growth, as well.”

Moe is the latest in a long line of skill players we’ve moved around a lot to get the most out of them. Some others in recent memory: Ervin Philips, Brisly Estime, Ashton Broyld...

Explain “Faster.”

“Yeah, just always got to go fast. I mean, fast is never fast enough. That's the one thing I've learned from Coach Babers, is no matter how fast we're going, we're not going fast enough. That's the tempo that I'm trying to push now upon the guys. Coach Babers has got it instilled in my head, fast is never fast enough, and you can always get them with tempo.”

Inevitably, with Dungey, we have to talk about injuries a bit.

“Yeah, I mean, I've put on about 20 pounds since last season, so I'm finally at a playing weight that I'm comfortable with. But staying healthy, it's obviously important. You need a quarterback out there, and I've taken the most reps, and that's the most important thing is getting reps in this offense. I'm doing my team bad if I'm not out there, and it's unfair to them, so I've just got to protect my body.”

Agree on all of that, though Hoya Suxa brings up an excellent point as well.

On how to adjust to Babers’s tempo...

“I would say probably the most comfortable I felt was that Boston College game. That's when I really started -- things started clicking. Things started slowing down for me. Year two, game four; that's what Coach says, that's when it's really going to start clicking. Unfortunately I didn't get those last four games, so I've been trying to put as much work in as I could just to get as many reps in my head. But I believe with those repetitions that it's going to come good.”

“Year two, game four” is getting to become too much of a thing already, guys. We’re going to be in bulletin board territory for LSU soon.

As you’d imagine, Eric’s a big fan of his wide receivers.

“It's awesome. You can never have enough weapons out there. The receivers that we brought in, they're learning right now, a couple are looking really good, and a couple you can tell are going to be very good, so I'm excited to see their growth and how they adjust.”

Samesies.

Joshua S. Kelly-USA TODAY Sports

MOAR #DISRESPECK (since everyone in the room just wants to talk about Florida State and Clemson)

“Yeah, I mean, like I said, just fires you up. Kind of makes me just want to go back and start working again. I'm going to. But it's kind of -- you play with a chip on your shoulder. It's kind of how it's been the past couple years. I'm excited for next year. I think we're going to surprise some people.”

You can hear the teeth-gnashing in Clemson right now, though really, this is more of a statement that they may agree with (based on the Tiger fans’ opinions I’ve seen on our long-term outlook under Babers).

This is encouraging, and exactly what you want to hear from your quarterback. But let’s take baby steps. In year two, “surprise some people” might mean we win six games and pick up another big upset along the way. Given how the last four years have gone, I’ll take that in a heartbeat.