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Coach Babers’s show this year show will be Thursday nights at 7PM except when the game is not on a Saturday. The show is two days before the game, except for Thanksgiving week. Here is the schedule:
Thursday, Aug. 29 – 7 pm; Thursday, Sept. 5 – 7 pm; Thursday, Sept. 12 – 7 pm
Thursday, Sept. 19 – 7 pm; Thursday, Sept. 26 – 7 pm; Tuesday, Oct. 8 – 7 pm
Wednesday, Oct. 16 – 7 pm; Thursday, Oct. 24 – 7 pm; Thursday, Oct. 31 – 7 pm
Thursday, Nov. 14 – 7 pm; Thursday, Nov. 21 – 7 pm; Tuesday, Nov. 26 – 7 pm
They are now adding the “Gomez Hour” that they do from 8-9PM for the Jim Boeheim basketball shows to the Dino Babers football show. I’ll be summarizing the comments directly related to the team and the next game (late) on the night of the broadcast and anything else interesting the next day, (if there is anything else that seems interesting). I’ll have a “first hour” and a “second hour” question.
The show will originate from PressRoom Pub, located at 220 Herald Place in Syracuse's historic Herald Square, each week this season.
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: Home | Free Internet Radio | TuneIn
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
#AskDino or through Cuse.com, (the SU Athletic website):
cuse.com
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
I’ve been asked to continue doing the summaries, even by people who listen to the podcasts. I may focus on the major points, rather than trying to record everything.
My Question(s) or Comments
First Hour:
“Coach, you’ve said that offensive line might show significant progress in games #4 -#6. When you looked at the film, did you see the progress you were looking for? If not, is it time to see what the guys behind them could do?”
Second Hour:
“Coach, you suggested in your press conference that opposing teams were targeting your injured players so you didn’t want to talk about what their injuries were. How often does that sort of thing happen in football?”
I changed this to another question (see below)
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.)
Matt noted how hard it was raining outside. Dino said it was God’s gift to farmers: free water. Meanwhile “The waiters keep serving us Arnold Palmers”, (they may have been John Dalys: Arnold Palmer (drink) - Wikipedia )
What went wrong against NC State? DB: “We didn’t score enough points. We made too many physical and mental mistakes. It’s a good thing young guys become sophomores and juniors. (We have two freshmen on the two deep for Pittsburgh: OT Carlos Vettorello and LB Mikel Jones.) You’d like to think we could get less penalties and that the other team should have more.” Matt said that the timing of the penalties was particularly difficult for SU. DB: “We couldn’t flip the field. The ball was at midfield, (when NC State got it) the whole first half”.
John in Baltimore called to ask why we keep going up the middle on first down and what were other teams doing to take our pass rushers out of the game? Maybe we could use their strategies, (he mentioned designed roll-outs). DB: “Alton may be leading the country in sacks.” (He isn’t leading the team – 2.5 to 3.5 for Lakiem Williams. Curtis Weaver of Boise State lead the country with 9.0). “Every time he touches them they go down or go off their spot. If the quarterback steps up, there’s not enough push in the middle of the line.” (It’s possible Coach may have said that Alton isn’t leading the country in sacks but every time he touches the quarter they got down or are pushed off their spot.) Later they talked about sack production and Matt noted that it had been spread out over the defense this year. DB: “We’ve been mixing it up and are getting them from different areas. It makes us harder to prepare for.”
As to plays up the middle, Coach described all the gaps that those plays could be run into – different ones covering 8-9 yards across the field and said “We don’t’ really know where the ball will go” he said that there were two kinds of passes they run on first down “a run-pass option or take a shot. We want a makeable third down. It’s hard to make it on 3rd and 10 or 12. Why do we run it in those situations? Because the other teams are playing ‘prevent’ defense with 7-8 guys looking at the quarterback’s eyes. We’ve got as good a chance to make it on a run as with a pass. Out tackles can’t handle the stress of 3rd and 10.”
They discussed the running game. Matt said he had no idea why the NCAA continues to count sacks as losses in the run game. Dino said “Just because you get sacks, that doesn’t mean you can stop the running game. Even if you remove the sacks, our running game hasn’t been productive enough. I expect at least one 100 yards game, maybe two from our running backs.”
I called in my first question. It was a short one and it got a short answer. “I’ve not seen the progress I’m looking for. Everybody has to get 10-12% better. If things don’t change immediately there will be changes.”
Marty from Tampa assured the coach that “there’s a lot of season left and there will be a large contingent of SU fans at the Florida State game.” Matt talked about what a great venue for college football that is. Dino: “When Osceloa plants the flaming spear, that’s cool, really cool.”
How do the players react to a bad performance? “They don’t have a lot of time to talk to people prior to the Sunday meeting. They want to know what really happened and we show them that it wasn’t 1-2 plays that lost the game. It’s 20-30 plays.” Does he ‘call out’ players? “Not in public but the Sunday meetings are what we call “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” and the whole team gets to see it.” Do they already know that they’ve screwed up? “Either they know or they say “I can’t believe I did that.” Sometimes they are dead wrong and the whole team knows it. As long as 105 stepsons know it. That’s enough.” Do they have any moments of comedy? “After wins. Being humble and meek is part of it.”
Matt asked about the “wildcat” plays- direct snaps to Abdul Adams. “We thought we could catch them off guard with that and get major chunks. We didn’t get what we wanted out of it. It was drying up, not getting better so we abandoned it.”
Lenny in Whitesboro asked something about “fly routes on first down”. Catching the defense in the middle of substitutions must have been part of it. Dino: “We made our name with that play in 2012-2016 but they changed the rule. The referees will now stop the game so the defensive backs can catch their breath. It makes the game so much slower, it’s not worth it any more. Any time the ball is out of bounds on the offensive side, the referee in the white cap will raise his arms and the head linesman will hold up play. When it’s on the defensive side they won’t.” I didn’t quite understand what he was describing but it apparently has something do with defensive players not having to come across the field to line up for the next play.
Joe in DeWitt asked if the Pitt game was a “make or break” game. DB: “It’s never make or break game: you can lose a game and win 4-5 in a row. It’s another rivalry game and we’ve got it at home. We’re pretty tough at home. If you don’t win at home, it’s difficult to win on the road.”
Gomez later asked if it’s hard to practice against trick plays. “You don’t run them all time because you don’t know how the defense will react. I like trick plays at the right time. Some defenses are susceptible more than others.” I later told Coach that a friend of mine once said that if he were a coach, he’d run a trick play on every play. I told the guy that then they wouldn’t be trick plays – they’d be your offe4nse. You have to run the basic plays to set up the trick plays.
Matt summarized the closeness of recent games: the last four games at the Dome have been 14-13, 16-17, 20-23, 27-24, which totals 77-77. Pitt’s last four games this year have been 35-34, 17-14 and 33-30, (and the ones before that were 14-30, 20-10 and 10-17). So the game figures to be a good one.
This will be a different Pitt team, with Mark Whipple being the offensive coordinator. Dino knows him well and played against his Massachusetts teams at Bowling Green. “He’s a master of the passing game and getting receivers out into space.” Maurice French has 50 catches in 5 games while Taysit Mack has 41. Matt recalled that when Dino came here, our receivers started having astronomical catch totals: QAmba Etta Tawo had 94, then Steve Ismael set the record with 105 while Erv Phillips had 90, then 89. AB: “Wideouts have to stay healthy and get open to get 10 catches a game. You can’t have soft tissue injuries.”
“Pitt has smaller backs than usual. We’re used to 200 pound+ backs like James Connor, who played on the defensive line sometimes.” Defensively, Pitt “rushes four 40% of the time and brings the kitchen sink 60% of the time. They play man to man sometimes, cover 2 other times. They will give up plays to confuse the quarterback. We need to be aggressive and hit shots. No one covers the quarterback in man-for-man.”
Matt said that we only gave up one touchdown against NC State and “if we do that again, I like our chances.” DB: “It could have been even better. The play they scored on could only work against a man for man defense. If we’d bene a in a zone, that was as likely to be a touchdown for us as for them –we’d have intercepted it.” Do we have any trick plays we could use? “We have some tricks in our bag. But we need to find a way to become consistent. We need to physically move people out of the way.”
Mike in Utica asked if Dino recruits to fit his system or does he adjust to the skills of the players he has or can get? “One of my strengths is adjusting to the available personnel. But we need to take a deep breath. It’s really about the elephants, which is what I call the offensive linemen and the Hippos, which is my name for the defensive lineman. If they are not consistent, it’s only a matter of time before the cards fall down. We’ve got three young people who will become veterans.” The two deep has one freshman on offense – Carlos Vetterello, and two sophomores- Dakota Davis and Darius Tisdale. The defensive line has no freshmen and 1 sophomore- Curtis Harper). Last year we had five veterans on the offensive line and more veterans on the defensive line….Running backs need space. Young men need to drop their hips and bend their knees and move the table. You’ve got to move someone who doesn’t want to move. We need to put the defensive linemen in the linebacker’s laps. The younger players are 18=19 years old and the older ones are 20-22 years old. Ask the ladies if there is a difference between an 18 year old man and a 22 year old man.”
John in Baltimore asked what positon is the hardest to recruit for. He felt it might be athletic offensive linemen. Dino agreed: The 4-5 stars can normally adjust quickly to college ball. But big guys grow up being told not to hurt people. They are not aggressive by nature. We have to find a way to mess with them. They can be nice off the field, like a giant teddy bear. That’s why I call them elephants. (because they are giant teddy bears.) They are big but they don’t’ have any teeth. But if five of them get together they can tear everything up. Hippos are the meanest. They kill more people than any other animal. They are just nastier.” Matt said “Soon you’ll have the whole zoo out there.”
Based on Dino’s statement about adjusting his strategy to his players, I went with an alternate question I had also considered sending in for my second question. Last year our slot receivers, Sean Riley and Nykeim Johnson totaled 105 receptions, (in 13 games), for 1,321 yards and 7 touchdowns. this year they have, (in 6 games) 34 receptions for 200 yards and 1TD. Last year our tight ends, Ravian Pierce and Aaron Hackett had a total of 20 receptions for 148 yards and 4TDs. This year Hackett and Luke Benson already have 20 receptions for 206 yards and 4TDs. Considering the lack of production from the slot and the strong production from the tight ends, do we have the capability to play with two tight ends? I recall the Patriots winning a Super Bowl with two tight ends as their major weapons and teams have used two tight ends against us effectively, Maryland, for example. Wouldn’t that improve our blocking up front, our production form the passing game and our success rate in the red zone?
Dino: “Yes, we can do that. But what you are leaving out is match-ups. Our two slots have a lot of game experience. Younger guys may make mental mistakes. We’d be half as good as the Patriots, (I’ll take that.) “Our system is like a virus that shoots through your computer. We can shrink it or expand it. There’s competition between individuals but also between personnel groups: One back and four wideouts, two backs and two tight ends, one back and three wideouts, (he gave a half a dozen combinations). Some groups move the needle more than others. Some can handle the load better than others.” Gomez asked if that covers it. I said I guessed so. I asked why the slots have been so much less productive this year. Dino said that like everything else, it comes back to the offensive line. The slots were most effective in empty backfield situations and our line this year can’t handle the blitzes in those situations.
What’s Tommy DeVito’s status? “He’s in a rush to get better and acquire knowledge playing through owies. 1-2 decisions and a couple of penalties cost us 4 plays at the end of that game. It will be exciting when he acquires full knowledge. Right now he’s cutting his baby teeth.” Matt said he admired the coach’s ability to keep coming up with analogies.
Matt also said that we’d had a rare missed field goal. With that the end might have been different. Dino said we needed only another 6-10 yards to get in range if we’d been down by only 3. “And they still need to guard the end zone….it was really his first experience in a two minute drill situation. “ (Hardly: remember the North Carolina game last year?) “He’s gotten hit more in 6 games than he did in his entire high school career. He’ll be a warrior.” (That’s better than being Andrew Robinson.)
Gomez was interested in Coach’s news conference where he said the time had come to take off the orange-colored glasses and that it was “an exciting time to get better.” DB: “You are what you are. We thought we could be better. We are in a hurry to get better. If we can get better every single game for six games we could get to play a seventh game and have a season to be proud of.”
Dino announced that they had just voted on permanent captains. The names haven’t been released to the public yet but we’ll see them going out to the coin flip. “If all the players were more like them we’d be a lot better.”
What’s the worst weather Dino has played a game in? “I was coaching at Northern Arizona and we played Montana. We were in a Chicago bear ‘46’ defense with man-to-man press coverage. The game started in beautiful weather- sunny and in the 50’s. There was no score in the first period. Then it started to rain and then it started to snow. We ended the half ain a blizzard. Our defensive backs were in a man for man and slipping all over the place and we were getting blown away. In the third quarter it was snowing sideways. Then it was snowing straight down. Then it was raining again. By the final five minutes it was 50 degrees and sunny again and the snow was melting.” That would be the 10/20/90 game the Lumberjacks lost to Montana 14-48: Northern Arizona Game by Game Results
Gomez asked about the controversial calls in the Detroit-Green Bay game. Dino said the rule is the same in college as the pros: “Everything in my helmet belongs to me. If you stick something in of yours in it you’re either not going to get it back or get penalized. I used to officiate football games for extra money. My rule was “See it and call it. “ Don’t assume it and call it.” (I wish he had officiated the basketball game at Duke back in 2014). Dino used to play basketball. “I used to have long arms for my body. When a guy tried a crossover dribbled, I was able to reach around and push the ball forward without touching him. But it was an automatic foul if you reach behind a guy. That official saw something that didn’t occur.” What NFL rules would he like to see in college? “I’d like to see the fair catch rule where a team making one gets an unobstructed free kick, at least with the kickers we’ve got.”
Dino said that 9 for the 14 teams in the ACC have new quarterbacks. “We know who is the best quarterback in the conference, (Trevor Lawrence), Who is the second best quarterback in the conference? Until that’s solidified everything will be up and down. Next year the league will be better and in two years it will be great with all the veteran quarterbacks.”
Bobby Bowden was asked what the best college team he’s ever seen? Gomez said that he chose the 1977 Pittsburgh team. “Tony Dorsett might have been on that team and Dan Marino, too. “Dino: “Might have been.” No and no. Neither Tony nor Dan were on the 1977 Pittsburgh team. Tony was on the 1976 Pittsburgh team that won the national championship and Dan quarterbacks the best Pitt team I’ve seen in 1980 that also had Hugh Green on defense. Bobby was West Virginia’s head coach from 1970-75, then moved to Florida State. He didn’t play the 1976 Pittsburgh team and beat the 1980 Pitt team:
Dino: “They’ve had a lot of good teams and a lot of tough guys playing for them.”
Gomez said that someone had described this year’s Panthers as “the most consistently inconsistent 4-2 team in the country”. DB: “I understand English so I think I got that.” Dino agreed that a Friday night game is “another chance to showcase the program but we need to put a better foot forward than last week. It’s a chance to shine and get better and grow up. ”
Thursday, Aug. 29 – 7 pm; Thursday, Sept. 5 – 7 pm; Thursday, Sept. 12 – 7 pm
Thursday, Sept. 19 – 7 pm; Thursday, Sept. 26 – 7 pm; Tuesday, Oct. 8 – 7 pm
Wednesday, Oct. 16 – 7 pm; Thursday, Oct. 24 – 7 pm; Thursday, Oct. 31 – 7 pm
Thursday, Nov. 14 – 7 pm; Thursday, Nov. 21 – 7 pm; Tuesday, Nov. 26 – 7 pm
They are now adding the “Gomez Hour” that they do from 8-9PM for the Jim Boeheim basketball shows to the Dino Babers football show. I’ll be summarizing the comments directly related to the team and the next game (late) on the night of the broadcast and anything else interesting the next day, (if there is anything else that seems interesting). I’ll have a “first hour” and a “second hour” question.
The show will originate from PressRoom Pub, located at 220 Herald Place in Syracuse's historic Herald Square, each week this season.
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: Home | Free Internet Radio | TuneIn
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
#AskDino or through Cuse.com, (the SU Athletic website):
Submit a Question! - Syracuse University Athletics
Submit your question for Syracuse Learfield Sports Network programs.
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
I’ve been asked to continue doing the summaries, even by people who listen to the podcasts. I may focus on the major points, rather than trying to record everything.
My Question(s) or Comments
First Hour:
“Coach, you’ve said that offensive line might show significant progress in games #4 -#6. When you looked at the film, did you see the progress you were looking for? If not, is it time to see what the guys behind them could do?”
Second Hour:
“Coach, you suggested in your press conference that opposing teams were targeting your injured players so you didn’t want to talk about what their injuries were. How often does that sort of thing happen in football?”
I changed this to another question (see below)
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.)
Matt noted how hard it was raining outside. Dino said it was God’s gift to farmers: free water. Meanwhile “The waiters keep serving us Arnold Palmers”, (they may have been John Dalys: Arnold Palmer (drink) - Wikipedia )
What went wrong against NC State? DB: “We didn’t score enough points. We made too many physical and mental mistakes. It’s a good thing young guys become sophomores and juniors. (We have two freshmen on the two deep for Pittsburgh: OT Carlos Vettorello and LB Mikel Jones.) You’d like to think we could get less penalties and that the other team should have more.” Matt said that the timing of the penalties was particularly difficult for SU. DB: “We couldn’t flip the field. The ball was at midfield, (when NC State got it) the whole first half”.
John in Baltimore called to ask why we keep going up the middle on first down and what were other teams doing to take our pass rushers out of the game? Maybe we could use their strategies, (he mentioned designed roll-outs). DB: “Alton may be leading the country in sacks.” (He isn’t leading the team – 2.5 to 3.5 for Lakiem Williams. Curtis Weaver of Boise State lead the country with 9.0). “Every time he touches them they go down or go off their spot. If the quarterback steps up, there’s not enough push in the middle of the line.” (It’s possible Coach may have said that Alton isn’t leading the country in sacks but every time he touches the quarter they got down or are pushed off their spot.) Later they talked about sack production and Matt noted that it had been spread out over the defense this year. DB: “We’ve been mixing it up and are getting them from different areas. It makes us harder to prepare for.”
As to plays up the middle, Coach described all the gaps that those plays could be run into – different ones covering 8-9 yards across the field and said “We don’t’ really know where the ball will go” he said that there were two kinds of passes they run on first down “a run-pass option or take a shot. We want a makeable third down. It’s hard to make it on 3rd and 10 or 12. Why do we run it in those situations? Because the other teams are playing ‘prevent’ defense with 7-8 guys looking at the quarterback’s eyes. We’ve got as good a chance to make it on a run as with a pass. Out tackles can’t handle the stress of 3rd and 10.”
They discussed the running game. Matt said he had no idea why the NCAA continues to count sacks as losses in the run game. Dino said “Just because you get sacks, that doesn’t mean you can stop the running game. Even if you remove the sacks, our running game hasn’t been productive enough. I expect at least one 100 yards game, maybe two from our running backs.”
I called in my first question. It was a short one and it got a short answer. “I’ve not seen the progress I’m looking for. Everybody has to get 10-12% better. If things don’t change immediately there will be changes.”
Marty from Tampa assured the coach that “there’s a lot of season left and there will be a large contingent of SU fans at the Florida State game.” Matt talked about what a great venue for college football that is. Dino: “When Osceloa plants the flaming spear, that’s cool, really cool.”
How do the players react to a bad performance? “They don’t have a lot of time to talk to people prior to the Sunday meeting. They want to know what really happened and we show them that it wasn’t 1-2 plays that lost the game. It’s 20-30 plays.” Does he ‘call out’ players? “Not in public but the Sunday meetings are what we call “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” and the whole team gets to see it.” Do they already know that they’ve screwed up? “Either they know or they say “I can’t believe I did that.” Sometimes they are dead wrong and the whole team knows it. As long as 105 stepsons know it. That’s enough.” Do they have any moments of comedy? “After wins. Being humble and meek is part of it.”
Matt asked about the “wildcat” plays- direct snaps to Abdul Adams. “We thought we could catch them off guard with that and get major chunks. We didn’t get what we wanted out of it. It was drying up, not getting better so we abandoned it.”
Lenny in Whitesboro asked something about “fly routes on first down”. Catching the defense in the middle of substitutions must have been part of it. Dino: “We made our name with that play in 2012-2016 but they changed the rule. The referees will now stop the game so the defensive backs can catch their breath. It makes the game so much slower, it’s not worth it any more. Any time the ball is out of bounds on the offensive side, the referee in the white cap will raise his arms and the head linesman will hold up play. When it’s on the defensive side they won’t.” I didn’t quite understand what he was describing but it apparently has something do with defensive players not having to come across the field to line up for the next play.
Joe in DeWitt asked if the Pitt game was a “make or break” game. DB: “It’s never make or break game: you can lose a game and win 4-5 in a row. It’s another rivalry game and we’ve got it at home. We’re pretty tough at home. If you don’t win at home, it’s difficult to win on the road.”
Gomez later asked if it’s hard to practice against trick plays. “You don’t run them all time because you don’t know how the defense will react. I like trick plays at the right time. Some defenses are susceptible more than others.” I later told Coach that a friend of mine once said that if he were a coach, he’d run a trick play on every play. I told the guy that then they wouldn’t be trick plays – they’d be your offe4nse. You have to run the basic plays to set up the trick plays.
Matt summarized the closeness of recent games: the last four games at the Dome have been 14-13, 16-17, 20-23, 27-24, which totals 77-77. Pitt’s last four games this year have been 35-34, 17-14 and 33-30, (and the ones before that were 14-30, 20-10 and 10-17). So the game figures to be a good one.
This will be a different Pitt team, with Mark Whipple being the offensive coordinator. Dino knows him well and played against his Massachusetts teams at Bowling Green. “He’s a master of the passing game and getting receivers out into space.” Maurice French has 50 catches in 5 games while Taysit Mack has 41. Matt recalled that when Dino came here, our receivers started having astronomical catch totals: QAmba Etta Tawo had 94, then Steve Ismael set the record with 105 while Erv Phillips had 90, then 89. AB: “Wideouts have to stay healthy and get open to get 10 catches a game. You can’t have soft tissue injuries.”
“Pitt has smaller backs than usual. We’re used to 200 pound+ backs like James Connor, who played on the defensive line sometimes.” Defensively, Pitt “rushes four 40% of the time and brings the kitchen sink 60% of the time. They play man to man sometimes, cover 2 other times. They will give up plays to confuse the quarterback. We need to be aggressive and hit shots. No one covers the quarterback in man-for-man.”
Matt said that we only gave up one touchdown against NC State and “if we do that again, I like our chances.” DB: “It could have been even better. The play they scored on could only work against a man for man defense. If we’d bene a in a zone, that was as likely to be a touchdown for us as for them –we’d have intercepted it.” Do we have any trick plays we could use? “We have some tricks in our bag. But we need to find a way to become consistent. We need to physically move people out of the way.”
Mike in Utica asked if Dino recruits to fit his system or does he adjust to the skills of the players he has or can get? “One of my strengths is adjusting to the available personnel. But we need to take a deep breath. It’s really about the elephants, which is what I call the offensive linemen and the Hippos, which is my name for the defensive lineman. If they are not consistent, it’s only a matter of time before the cards fall down. We’ve got three young people who will become veterans.” The two deep has one freshman on offense – Carlos Vetterello, and two sophomores- Dakota Davis and Darius Tisdale. The defensive line has no freshmen and 1 sophomore- Curtis Harper). Last year we had five veterans on the offensive line and more veterans on the defensive line….Running backs need space. Young men need to drop their hips and bend their knees and move the table. You’ve got to move someone who doesn’t want to move. We need to put the defensive linemen in the linebacker’s laps. The younger players are 18=19 years old and the older ones are 20-22 years old. Ask the ladies if there is a difference between an 18 year old man and a 22 year old man.”
John in Baltimore asked what positon is the hardest to recruit for. He felt it might be athletic offensive linemen. Dino agreed: The 4-5 stars can normally adjust quickly to college ball. But big guys grow up being told not to hurt people. They are not aggressive by nature. We have to find a way to mess with them. They can be nice off the field, like a giant teddy bear. That’s why I call them elephants. (because they are giant teddy bears.) They are big but they don’t’ have any teeth. But if five of them get together they can tear everything up. Hippos are the meanest. They kill more people than any other animal. They are just nastier.” Matt said “Soon you’ll have the whole zoo out there.”
Based on Dino’s statement about adjusting his strategy to his players, I went with an alternate question I had also considered sending in for my second question. Last year our slot receivers, Sean Riley and Nykeim Johnson totaled 105 receptions, (in 13 games), for 1,321 yards and 7 touchdowns. this year they have, (in 6 games) 34 receptions for 200 yards and 1TD. Last year our tight ends, Ravian Pierce and Aaron Hackett had a total of 20 receptions for 148 yards and 4TDs. This year Hackett and Luke Benson already have 20 receptions for 206 yards and 4TDs. Considering the lack of production from the slot and the strong production from the tight ends, do we have the capability to play with two tight ends? I recall the Patriots winning a Super Bowl with two tight ends as their major weapons and teams have used two tight ends against us effectively, Maryland, for example. Wouldn’t that improve our blocking up front, our production form the passing game and our success rate in the red zone?
Dino: “Yes, we can do that. But what you are leaving out is match-ups. Our two slots have a lot of game experience. Younger guys may make mental mistakes. We’d be half as good as the Patriots, (I’ll take that.) “Our system is like a virus that shoots through your computer. We can shrink it or expand it. There’s competition between individuals but also between personnel groups: One back and four wideouts, two backs and two tight ends, one back and three wideouts, (he gave a half a dozen combinations). Some groups move the needle more than others. Some can handle the load better than others.” Gomez asked if that covers it. I said I guessed so. I asked why the slots have been so much less productive this year. Dino said that like everything else, it comes back to the offensive line. The slots were most effective in empty backfield situations and our line this year can’t handle the blitzes in those situations.
What’s Tommy DeVito’s status? “He’s in a rush to get better and acquire knowledge playing through owies. 1-2 decisions and a couple of penalties cost us 4 plays at the end of that game. It will be exciting when he acquires full knowledge. Right now he’s cutting his baby teeth.” Matt said he admired the coach’s ability to keep coming up with analogies.
Matt also said that we’d had a rare missed field goal. With that the end might have been different. Dino said we needed only another 6-10 yards to get in range if we’d been down by only 3. “And they still need to guard the end zone….it was really his first experience in a two minute drill situation. “ (Hardly: remember the North Carolina game last year?) “He’s gotten hit more in 6 games than he did in his entire high school career. He’ll be a warrior.” (That’s better than being Andrew Robinson.)
Gomez was interested in Coach’s news conference where he said the time had come to take off the orange-colored glasses and that it was “an exciting time to get better.” DB: “You are what you are. We thought we could be better. We are in a hurry to get better. If we can get better every single game for six games we could get to play a seventh game and have a season to be proud of.”
Dino announced that they had just voted on permanent captains. The names haven’t been released to the public yet but we’ll see them going out to the coin flip. “If all the players were more like them we’d be a lot better.”
What’s the worst weather Dino has played a game in? “I was coaching at Northern Arizona and we played Montana. We were in a Chicago bear ‘46’ defense with man-to-man press coverage. The game started in beautiful weather- sunny and in the 50’s. There was no score in the first period. Then it started to rain and then it started to snow. We ended the half ain a blizzard. Our defensive backs were in a man for man and slipping all over the place and we were getting blown away. In the third quarter it was snowing sideways. Then it was snowing straight down. Then it was raining again. By the final five minutes it was 50 degrees and sunny again and the snow was melting.” That would be the 10/20/90 game the Lumberjacks lost to Montana 14-48: Northern Arizona Game by Game Results
Gomez asked about the controversial calls in the Detroit-Green Bay game. Dino said the rule is the same in college as the pros: “Everything in my helmet belongs to me. If you stick something in of yours in it you’re either not going to get it back or get penalized. I used to officiate football games for extra money. My rule was “See it and call it. “ Don’t assume it and call it.” (I wish he had officiated the basketball game at Duke back in 2014). Dino used to play basketball. “I used to have long arms for my body. When a guy tried a crossover dribbled, I was able to reach around and push the ball forward without touching him. But it was an automatic foul if you reach behind a guy. That official saw something that didn’t occur.” What NFL rules would he like to see in college? “I’d like to see the fair catch rule where a team making one gets an unobstructed free kick, at least with the kickers we’ve got.”
Dino said that 9 for the 14 teams in the ACC have new quarterbacks. “We know who is the best quarterback in the conference, (Trevor Lawrence), Who is the second best quarterback in the conference? Until that’s solidified everything will be up and down. Next year the league will be better and in two years it will be great with all the veteran quarterbacks.”
Bobby Bowden was asked what the best college team he’s ever seen? Gomez said that he chose the 1977 Pittsburgh team. “Tony Dorsett might have been on that team and Dan Marino, too. “Dino: “Might have been.” No and no. Neither Tony nor Dan were on the 1977 Pittsburgh team. Tony was on the 1976 Pittsburgh team that won the national championship and Dan quarterbacks the best Pitt team I’ve seen in 1980 that also had Hugh Green on defense. Bobby was West Virginia’s head coach from 1970-75, then moved to Florida State. He didn’t play the 1976 Pittsburgh team and beat the 1980 Pitt team:
Pittsburgh Historical Scores
www.jhowell.net
Gomez said that someone had described this year’s Panthers as “the most consistently inconsistent 4-2 team in the country”. DB: “I understand English so I think I got that.” Dino agreed that a Friday night game is “another chance to showcase the program but we need to put a better foot forward than last week. It’s a chance to shine and get better and grow up. ”
