Shafer was 7-17 (.291) in the ACC after three years, and was fired with little if any controversy.
Now Babers is 15-35 (.300) in the ACC after six years. Not only is he being retained for year seven, but a whole bunch of people are defending him?
What the hell is the logic here?
It pains me how often I have to explain this but here goes
year 1: beat a ranked team, showed improvement. usually p5 coaches following a fired coach based on performance gets to call this year zero, understanding it’s going to take time
year 2: beat a #2 ranked Clemson, our star QB got hurt, depth still an issue, more progress
year 3: 10 wins, took the nat champs to the last drive or so at their place, good vibes… enough that
contract extension! Made sense, steady improvement capped by the first 10 win season since P
year 4: largely sucked, we made some bad hires, system slowly got figured out, QB depth etc. horrible stuff, but is on Dino. But he just signed an extension, not ugly enough to get fired
year 5: COVID. We’re not firing our coach in a year where we played 1 OOC, adhered to NYS Covid restrictions, etc. plus his buyout was high and the athletic depart was strained due to COVID
year 6: best RB in the ACC, so-so results, new hires on OL and DC start to yield fruit. Some call for his head, but AD rightly says these players haven’t given up on him so instead of eating his buyout, let’s spend that money on some offense and ST coaches. Leading to
year 7: possible Heisman darkhorse RB, multiple NFL draft picks, tough schedule, but high hopes > starting over with some other year zero HC
if we win less than 5 or 6, it’s going to be tough on Dino. But given the history laid out, I’m ok with it even though the record has been way less than what we’d expect
edit: I see I didn’t need to respond lol… oh well, I’ll leave this here for posterity’s sake