SWC75
Bored Historian
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- Aug 26, 2011
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NOTE: I am preparing this in early August, as it appears the power conference teams are going to attempt to have a season despite the ongoing Covid19 pandemic. (And since I wrote this the Big 10 and Pac 12 have dropped out.) The small colleges (NAIA, D3, and D2) have cancelled or postponed their fall seasons. FCS, (technically D1), has until August 21st to decide. Their conferences are bowing out, one by one. To me it only verifies that decisions are made about money, not about ‘student athletes’ and the student athletes are responding by ‘opting out’, as SU’s defensive linemen Cooper Dawson has already done at this writing and issuing demands as a groups representing Pac 12 and Big 10 players have done. I’m still not convinced that this season will come off at all. Certainly circumstances will be very much subject to change and more players or even teams opt out. I’ll try to keep this preview updated until I post it.
Update: the Big 10 and Pac10 have ‘opted out’, although there is some talk of the Big Ten playing a ‘winter schedule’ and they are looking to rent out Domes, including ours, to do so. Another rumor has Ohio State joining the ACC for a eyar so they can play, which would require another redo of the schedules.
THE SITUATION
I began last year’s preview with this quotation:
“Icarus, the son of Daedalus who created the maze that held the Minotaur was given wings which allowed him to fly away from the Island of Crete. He was told not to fly too near the Sun nor too close to the water, as these wings were driven by the interaction of Sun and Water. He flew too close to the sun, his wings melted, and he fell to the Sea.”
Our wings sure melted last season. We’d had quite a year in 2018: 10-3 with another bowl whipping of West Virginia, (that never gets old). But two of the three losses could easily have been victories: we led at Clemson until the last minute of the game, trying to get a second consecutive victory over a major national power and we certainly should have beaten Pittsburgh. We could have been 11-1 ACC Atlantic champions and favored in the ACC title game. As a 12-1 ACC champion that had beaten Clemson twice, we would have to have been considered for the National Championship playoff. We would not likely have gotten it, with Clemson still looming at 11-1 and Notre Dame, who crushed us, at 12-0. But they would have had to consider us and that would have been amazing after all our years of struggling back toward relevance.
Even so we seemed to be “back”. The glory of Syracuse football lies in three great stretches: from 1914-35 we had 22 straight winning seasons, from 1950-71 we had 22 straight years without a losing record (a couple came out even) and from 1987-2001 we had 15 straight winners. Each period has been followed by a stretch of similar length in which we were mediocre or worse. We were due to have another great period and 2018 seemed to herald its beginning. We expected to pick things up where we left off in 2019 with opening wins over Liberty and Maryland leading to Clemson’s visit to the Dome in what was now an Orange rivalry with ESPN Game Day coming to Syracuse for the first time for football. It would be an all-day long infomercial for the community, the school, its athletic program and the football team.
Then the wings melted. The Maryland Terrapins ran through us like cheetahs in a shocking 20-63 loss, made even more embarrassing by the fact that Maryland won only one more game the rest of the year. GameDay departed for the Iowa-Iowa State game and Clemson rolled us, 6-41. We were not ‘ready for prime time’. We got a couple of expected wins over Western Michigan and Holy Cross. We then went into a pattern of having lousy first halves and coming short with second half comebacks. NC State: 0-13 becomes 10-16. Pittsburgh: 6-24 becomes 20-27. Florida State: 3-21 becomes 17-35. The worst was the Boston College debacle. We were actually leading what was already a wild game after one period, 17-10. Then came a 3-34 second period featured a 64 yard pass, a 50 yard pass, a 51 yard run, a 74 yard run, and a little old 4 yard pass, all for scores that made it 20-44. It wound up 27-58.
That resulted in what must have been a painful decision for Coach Dino Babers: he fired his long-time defensive coordinator Brian Ward, replacing him with Steve Stenard, who came up with a scheme to free up our outstanding defensive ends, Alton Robinson and Kendall Coleman, by having them stunt inside the tackles, who moved outside to cover the flanks. Duke was unprepared for it and the new scheme contributed mightily to a “where was this all season” 49-7 whipping of a decent Blue Devil team. But Louisville saw it on film and they were prepared for it, using their fast backs on wide plays that streaked down the sideline in a discouraging 34-56 loss that ended any hope of a bowl game. The season ended with a home overtime loss to Wake Forest- WAIT! Trill Williams just stole the ball and is running down the field!
(It never gets old.)
It was a fun way to end one of the most disappointing seasons we’ve ever had. Basically a 4-8 team wound up 5-7. Whoop-de-doo!
The realization set in that we were not ‘back’, at least in terms of 15 or 22 years streaks of sustained success. Our breakthrough was not an 11-0 season like 1987. It was a 10-3 season and the follow-up wasn’t a 10-2 season like 1988. What 2018 proved was that we are now a program that can produce a year like that but we are going to have to build up to it. If we have veteran, talented performers in key positons, (and other programs help us out a bit by being ‘down’ at the right time) , we can have a season like that. Unlike the three ‘glory’ periods we aren’t playing a collection of eastern independents at various levels of competition. We are in the Atlantic Division of the ACC with two legitimate national powers, Clemson and Florida State, (who will be back), two other strong programs we have particular trouble beating, Louisville and NC State and a couple of other programs we have had a problems with, Wake Forest and Boston College and a rival in the other division that had dominated us in recent years, Pittsburgh. The conference as a whole is full of southern schools in states that emphasize the sport more than New York does. There are no soft spots to land. We’ve got to be good to be mediocre and really good to be good. ‘Great’ is getting hard to imagine.
Dino Babers is a very popular, respected coach and that 2018 season was significantly better than anything we’ve achieved in this century. But last year was his third losing season in four years. Even Dino can’t sustain too many losing seasons before recruits start to look elsewhere, (in truth, he’s still trying to get them to look here), and the national press starts listing as being “on the hot seat”. It’s the sort of ‘hot take’ that becomes self-fulfilling the more it gets repeated. You’ve got to shut it up with winning seasons. That was going to be the big theme this year.
Then came the pandemic, which ripped up spring practice, (just as Babers was trying to install a whole new 3-3-5 defense with still another defensive coordinator Tony White – at least we know, by the definition of insanity, Dino is sane). Now he has, (like everyone else), to prepare for a season that may or may not happen this fall, (or at all), under restrictions on physical distancing, trying to keep his players healthy. Meanwhile the schedule, which was set up for a 4-0 non-conference start to give Dino a lift toward that much needed winning season, has been trashed and replaced with a 10 game conference marathon with the toughest games on the road, Plus a game vs. Liberty which will accomplish nothing. We are told we will get to play one non-conference game. There’s talk of Western Michigan, a team we were supposed to play on the road that could certainly beat us. I’d rather play Colgate in the Dome, as originally scheduled. Update: For some reason, we opted for Liberty.
To say it’s going to be difficult to engineer a winning season with just one non-conference game and road games with Clemson. Louisville, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh. Will Dino be given a pass on this year, considering the circumstances? I think he will by the school, the local media and knowledgeable fans but not by the national media and undecided recruits. That will place a great deal of pressure on Babers and his staff in 2021. In the meantime the issue for 2020 is: What can they make out of this season? If we could somehow engineer a winning record against this schedule and get to a bowl game, it would be a great accomplishment and a huge boost to the program just when we need a new pair of wings.
Update: the Big 10 and Pac10 have ‘opted out’, although there is some talk of the Big Ten playing a ‘winter schedule’ and they are looking to rent out Domes, including ours, to do so. Another rumor has Ohio State joining the ACC for a eyar so they can play, which would require another redo of the schedules.
THE SITUATION
I began last year’s preview with this quotation:
“Icarus, the son of Daedalus who created the maze that held the Minotaur was given wings which allowed him to fly away from the Island of Crete. He was told not to fly too near the Sun nor too close to the water, as these wings were driven by the interaction of Sun and Water. He flew too close to the sun, his wings melted, and he fell to the Sea.”
Our wings sure melted last season. We’d had quite a year in 2018: 10-3 with another bowl whipping of West Virginia, (that never gets old). But two of the three losses could easily have been victories: we led at Clemson until the last minute of the game, trying to get a second consecutive victory over a major national power and we certainly should have beaten Pittsburgh. We could have been 11-1 ACC Atlantic champions and favored in the ACC title game. As a 12-1 ACC champion that had beaten Clemson twice, we would have to have been considered for the National Championship playoff. We would not likely have gotten it, with Clemson still looming at 11-1 and Notre Dame, who crushed us, at 12-0. But they would have had to consider us and that would have been amazing after all our years of struggling back toward relevance.
Even so we seemed to be “back”. The glory of Syracuse football lies in three great stretches: from 1914-35 we had 22 straight winning seasons, from 1950-71 we had 22 straight years without a losing record (a couple came out even) and from 1987-2001 we had 15 straight winners. Each period has been followed by a stretch of similar length in which we were mediocre or worse. We were due to have another great period and 2018 seemed to herald its beginning. We expected to pick things up where we left off in 2019 with opening wins over Liberty and Maryland leading to Clemson’s visit to the Dome in what was now an Orange rivalry with ESPN Game Day coming to Syracuse for the first time for football. It would be an all-day long infomercial for the community, the school, its athletic program and the football team.
Then the wings melted. The Maryland Terrapins ran through us like cheetahs in a shocking 20-63 loss, made even more embarrassing by the fact that Maryland won only one more game the rest of the year. GameDay departed for the Iowa-Iowa State game and Clemson rolled us, 6-41. We were not ‘ready for prime time’. We got a couple of expected wins over Western Michigan and Holy Cross. We then went into a pattern of having lousy first halves and coming short with second half comebacks. NC State: 0-13 becomes 10-16. Pittsburgh: 6-24 becomes 20-27. Florida State: 3-21 becomes 17-35. The worst was the Boston College debacle. We were actually leading what was already a wild game after one period, 17-10. Then came a 3-34 second period featured a 64 yard pass, a 50 yard pass, a 51 yard run, a 74 yard run, and a little old 4 yard pass, all for scores that made it 20-44. It wound up 27-58.
That resulted in what must have been a painful decision for Coach Dino Babers: he fired his long-time defensive coordinator Brian Ward, replacing him with Steve Stenard, who came up with a scheme to free up our outstanding defensive ends, Alton Robinson and Kendall Coleman, by having them stunt inside the tackles, who moved outside to cover the flanks. Duke was unprepared for it and the new scheme contributed mightily to a “where was this all season” 49-7 whipping of a decent Blue Devil team. But Louisville saw it on film and they were prepared for it, using their fast backs on wide plays that streaked down the sideline in a discouraging 34-56 loss that ended any hope of a bowl game. The season ended with a home overtime loss to Wake Forest- WAIT! Trill Williams just stole the ball and is running down the field!
(It never gets old.)
It was a fun way to end one of the most disappointing seasons we’ve ever had. Basically a 4-8 team wound up 5-7. Whoop-de-doo!
The realization set in that we were not ‘back’, at least in terms of 15 or 22 years streaks of sustained success. Our breakthrough was not an 11-0 season like 1987. It was a 10-3 season and the follow-up wasn’t a 10-2 season like 1988. What 2018 proved was that we are now a program that can produce a year like that but we are going to have to build up to it. If we have veteran, talented performers in key positons, (and other programs help us out a bit by being ‘down’ at the right time) , we can have a season like that. Unlike the three ‘glory’ periods we aren’t playing a collection of eastern independents at various levels of competition. We are in the Atlantic Division of the ACC with two legitimate national powers, Clemson and Florida State, (who will be back), two other strong programs we have particular trouble beating, Louisville and NC State and a couple of other programs we have had a problems with, Wake Forest and Boston College and a rival in the other division that had dominated us in recent years, Pittsburgh. The conference as a whole is full of southern schools in states that emphasize the sport more than New York does. There are no soft spots to land. We’ve got to be good to be mediocre and really good to be good. ‘Great’ is getting hard to imagine.
Dino Babers is a very popular, respected coach and that 2018 season was significantly better than anything we’ve achieved in this century. But last year was his third losing season in four years. Even Dino can’t sustain too many losing seasons before recruits start to look elsewhere, (in truth, he’s still trying to get them to look here), and the national press starts listing as being “on the hot seat”. It’s the sort of ‘hot take’ that becomes self-fulfilling the more it gets repeated. You’ve got to shut it up with winning seasons. That was going to be the big theme this year.
Then came the pandemic, which ripped up spring practice, (just as Babers was trying to install a whole new 3-3-5 defense with still another defensive coordinator Tony White – at least we know, by the definition of insanity, Dino is sane). Now he has, (like everyone else), to prepare for a season that may or may not happen this fall, (or at all), under restrictions on physical distancing, trying to keep his players healthy. Meanwhile the schedule, which was set up for a 4-0 non-conference start to give Dino a lift toward that much needed winning season, has been trashed and replaced with a 10 game conference marathon with the toughest games on the road, Plus a game vs. Liberty which will accomplish nothing. We are told we will get to play one non-conference game. There’s talk of Western Michigan, a team we were supposed to play on the road that could certainly beat us. I’d rather play Colgate in the Dome, as originally scheduled. Update: For some reason, we opted for Liberty.
To say it’s going to be difficult to engineer a winning season with just one non-conference game and road games with Clemson. Louisville, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh. Will Dino be given a pass on this year, considering the circumstances? I think he will by the school, the local media and knowledgeable fans but not by the national media and undecided recruits. That will place a great deal of pressure on Babers and his staff in 2021. In the meantime the issue for 2020 is: What can they make out of this season? If we could somehow engineer a winning record against this schedule and get to a bowl game, it would be a great accomplishment and a huge boost to the program just when we need a new pair of wings.
