On more than one ocasion Dino Babers has remarked that his goal for his Syracuse Orange team is to be “consistently good, not occasionally great”. It’s a mantra he’s reminded all of us of after the big home wins over Virginia Tech and Clemson and he’ll tell every media member he needs to get that point across
“We need a team that’s going to be consistently good, not occasionally great. And occasionally great is exactly what we’ve been, which is something that I literally cannot stand.”
After starting 4-0 and leading the Clemson Tigers for 59 minutes, the Orange stumbled as a favorite against the Pittsburgh Panthers. We’ve all read and heard the disappointment as many of the people who were caught talking 9 or 10 wins are now screaming about the lack of progress from the Orange.
During one of the exchanges NOLACuse brought up a question about the road records of Syracuse in comparison to our peers in the ACC, so I took a look at those numbers.
It should come as no surprise to see Syracuse and the Virginia Cavaliers at the bottom of the list when it comes to road records, but you can see that both Pitt and the Boston College Eagles have found some success away from home.
Injuries and match-ups do matter and while it should be noted that the Orange have rarely been road favorites in ACC contests this is an area where Babers needs his team to improve to take that next step. Syracuse needs to be complete games to win away from the Dome. They need to seize on the opportunities presented as these swing games are the ones which make “good teams”.
The good news for the Orange is that games at Wake and BC in November give them an opportunity to get a .500 ACC road record this year. If they can accomplish that we might just see the team reach the “consistently good” level Babers has identified as his goal.