SWC75
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AmeriCU Dino Babers Show Returns Thursday - Syracuse University Athletics
The AmeriCU Dino Babers Show at Heritage Hill returns tonight!
Coach Babers’s show this year show will be Thursday nights at 7PM except when the game is not on a Saturday. This year it will be 60 minutes, with the first 50 minutes being with Dino and the last 10 minutes being with a ‘special guest’, who in the past just got a couple minutes at the end of the show.
The show originates from Heritage Hill Brewery in Jamesville:
Heritage Hill Brewhouse
Heritage Hill Brewhouse in Pompey. Handcrafted Beer, Homemade Food & Amazing Views set upon our active crop and animal farm. A family friendly destination that's an escape but close enough to call home.
You can also listen to the show live each week on the Syracuse IMG Sports Network and Cuse.com. Wednesday's show will be on 99.1 FM and 97.7 FM, as well. The show will regularly air on 99.5FM (Syracuse) 99.1 FM (Utica) and 1200 AM.”
You can also get it on: https://tunein.com/radio/home/
There hasn’t been any change in the phone numbers, which last year were 315-424-8599 (local) or 1-888-746-2873. You can call to ask questions or submit them via Twitter at: https://twitter.com/CuseIMG (Update: this account seems to have closed.)
#AskDino or through Cuse.com, (the SU Athletic website):
http://cuse.com/sb_output.aspx?form=4
You can (or could last year, anyway), listen to a podcast of the show, probably the next day, at: Search results for babers | Free Internet Radio | TuneIn
My Question(s) or Comments (or theories)
Coach, I know you feel that an immediate score can hurt a team, but I hope you’ve seen how the 1987 Penn State game began, (at the 14 minute mark): The crowd cheering was a rock concert decibel level from then on that day and it helped the team to keep playing at a super-high level.
Could you explain the current substitution rule where the referee has a staring contest with the quarterback to prevent the play from getting off while a 12th defender runs off the field? Had we substituted in every one of those situations and did Army get off the field in a timely fashion?
The Show
(I sometimes re-arrange the comments so that statements made on the same subject are reported together, even if they came at different points of the show.)
There was again no Matt Park, who missed the Army game with a family emergency. I’m sure we all hope for the best for Matt and his family. Tim Leonard took over for him, as he did last Saturday. We’ll see who does the game this Saturday. If it’s Tim, we know he’ll do a good job.
Coach: “Our young men did a fantastic job. I’m glad to report that Andre Miller, (the player who had to be carted off the field after a helmet-to-helmet collision with a teammate), is “fine and back at West Point”. Tim wanted to know what Dino said to the team after that. “Coach Monken was gracious enough to tell me that Andre was breathing well and moving his extremities. The kids did everything I wanted them to do without prompting. They represented the school and the community very well. Army taught us a lot, being a military team and hopefully we can apply those lessons.”
Tim asked about the adjustments made to turn that game around. DB: “We made sure we were putting our guys in the right positions and corrected mistakes. It was both the oches and players that made adjustments.” Tim praised the team for having fewer penalties. Dino said he liked that but “we’ll see what happens as we move up in class. Sometimes, when you’re guarding Michael Jordan, you’re going to have to commit some fouls. Penalties and turnovers matter.”
Marty from Tampa beat me to the phone and praised Umari Hatcher for chasing down Army’s Cameron Jones from behind after he intercepted a Garret Schrader pass on the last play of the first half and was going to be escorted to the goal line with 5 blockers. Coach said that was pointed out twice in the team meeting, once by the special team’s coach and once by the defensive coach, prompting a standing ovation each time. The DC told his players to “do it like that offensive player did it”. Dino said that Umari had been on a deep route and was down at about 5-10 yard line when the interception was made and caught Jones at the opposite 30. They gave him the “Willy Wonka Golden Ticket”, (which they give out about once every two years), for his “military effort”.
When I got on, I seconded that compliment and added that I saw #1, LeQuint Allen, arriving right behind Hatcher to make sure that Jones didn’t score. I recalled the play vs. Western Michigan where Donovan Brown caught the sideline pass from Shrader and cut across the field to go 86 yards for a score, Allen made the last block to spring him and escorted him into the end zone. “You’ve got some guys on your team that run all over the field, doing whatever they can to produce a Syracuse win.” I then made the comment about the Rob Moore play in the Penn State game and asked the question about the substitution rule.
DB: “I don’t have a thing about scoring on the opening drive. I’m talking about kickoffs. If you return the kickoff off the way, everyone thinks it’s going to be easy…The substitution calls were legal, right on the edge of the rule. A decade ago, teams were playing fast and defensive coaches, (Nick Saban! – don’t say I said that: I’ve never met him), wanted to slow us down, so they’ve gotten a series of rules passed to do that. They created the center judge to regulate that. They get in there and step over the ball and wait for the guy in the white hat to tell them to allow the play to begin. There doesn’t have to have bene an offensive substitution if the ball went out of bounds on the offensive team’s side. That’s because some coaches, (Dino Babers), would substitute for the guy going out of bounds while he was out of bounds. The thing is the defense can then take their time in making their substitution. A guy comes in and taps a guy on the shoulder and the guy he tapped waits until he feels the tap and comes off the field. Army does this at a ‘military pace’. This can cause 30 seconds of delay.” Leonard suggest the lack of “Orange is the new fast” in our attack is part that the coach has changed and part that the rules have change. DB: “It’s about 80% the rules and about 20% the coach. The things you saw us doing in 2016 and 2017 you don’t see any more due to rule changes. You’ll never see it that fast again. Some of these rules, along with the rule that a guy whose foot is out of bounds can touch the ball and his team keeps it, need to be looked at.”
Dominick in Carolina asked if the team has different levels of focus for different opponents. DB: “Unfortunately, our young men are dealing with a lot of things – games, practice, classes, social media, etc. and there are going to be valleys and lows, [I think he meant peaks and valleys], and we have to know what song to play with each. Sometimes you have to pressure them, to challenge them. We traditionally have good focus for this game. But sometimes they score a lot and we score a little bit. Sometimes it’s close. We’ve beaten them once. I like to say that they have 44 stars of offense, [11 four star players?] and 44 more on defense. They outgained Florida State and Duke. They could easily be tied for first place. They are as good as the 4-0 Clemson teams.”
Chris Acuff the defensive line coach, has a relationship with Dino that began in 2008 at Baylor. He has a staccato speaking style that gives you a taste of what he much be like on the sideline telling his charges what to do. I couldn’t write fast enough to get down all he said. “We were horrible early vs. Army, soft up front. I told my men “It’s gotta be us. We’ve gotta get off the ball and be physical – play the way we’re capable of playing.” Tim asked how much it helps to be able to rotate players. “We were already doing that. We play 6-8 guys per game. Caleb, Kavon, Terry, Jaquez and Jobity were great. I tell each group to play faster than the last – faster than the offensive linemen.” Dino said “It’s not just using back-ups. It’s how those back-ups are playing. Against Purdue, our nose tackles had 13 tackles!” Tim said that Kavon has a lot of heart. Chris said that he also has “a great center of gravity. He plays under people and has great hands. He’s compact and powerful.”
How do we beat Clemson? CA: “Be physical, own the line of scrimmage, manhandle the person in front of us. They aren’t more talented than us!”. Dino chimed in: “I predict pain. But what are you going to do after it hurts.” [Can anybody photoshop Dino’s face on Clubber Lang? I don’t know how.] Dino said that “Clemson’ stats are better than their record.” [Que Bill Parcells.] “Cade Klubnik was great against Florida State. He’s a more complete quarterback than he was when we last saw him. He can put the ball in the air. Combined with Will Shipley, they are dangerous.” He suggested we might see a two back set to allow Phil Maffa to play with Shipley, “who is a great blocker”. On defense, they “play two lines while we play 5-6 offensive linemen, as most teams do. Their players have some famous last names. Their fathers played in the NFL.
Tim asked Dino if his team “has exceeded expectations”. DB: “We’ve met the challenge. Purdue will be a good win, just like last year. Army could go bowling. Clemson do a lot of damage in this league.” Tim asked him how confident he was in his offensive line. Dino: “This is the first big test. Purdue made running difficult. Clemson can stop the run and rush the passer. We’ve had injuries this year but not as many. At certain positions we can survive an injury. At others we can’t. It’s tough not having Oronde.”
Also: “Who picked Clemson to be our homecoming game? Why can they consult me on these things? What are they going to think of that?”
The fans need to “make the Dome loud and crazy. We need the 12th man.” [Go deep on the first play, coach.]
