SWC75
Bored Historian
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2011
- Messages
- 34,491
- Like
- 67,130
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 – 6 pm; Thursday, Oct. 31 – 6 pm
Thursday, Nov. 14 – 6 pm; Thursday, Nov. 21 – 6 pm; Tuesday, Nov. 26 – 6 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, we are currently ranked #111 in the country in total defense. In your first three years we ranked 122nd, 106th and 88th (of 130 teams). What do we need to improve those rankings significantly and what will you be looking for in the candidates for the defensive coordinator job next year?”
Second Hour:
“Coach, through 11 games Sean Riley and Nykeim Johnson have 54 receptions for 356 yards and 1TD. Last year, in 13 games they had 105 catches for 1,321 yards and 7TDs. Last year they returned 36 kicks for 641 yards a touchdown. This year they have returned 34 kicks for 463 yards and no scores. I watched Jawhar Jordan run through Louisville like greased lightning and it made me wonder: Do smaller players lose their speed and elusiveness through a four year career because of all the hits they take?”
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.)
(Program notes: the Dino Babers Show will be from 6PM-8PM the rest of the season. The Jim Boeheim Show, which begins on Tuesday, 11/12, will still be from 7PM-9PM. The Boeheim Show will be on Tuesday for the first two weeks, (11/12-11/19), then move to Thursdays. The Babers show will be on Tuesday the 26th with no Jim Boeheim Show that week.)
Gomez asked about the schedule for Thanksgiving. Dino said that the team would practice early Thanksgiving morning, (how would like to do that?) Then players will try to get home to see their families. The ones that stay we try to put with local families or with the coach’s families.
Gomez said that the coach had told everyone last week that Louisville had plenty of speed and they proved him right. Dino: I’ve learned that the football fans of Central New York are very knowledgeable and I wouldn’t tell them anything that wasn’t true. It was not such a great day for one of our offensive lineman, although they did well overall. Our defense vs. Buffalo, (?) was odd and the Louisville game was even. (??) They exploited one young man in particular.
John in Baltimore called in to ask two questions. One was if we will be getting in some bigger guys to play defensive tackle. The other was whether the recruiting connections of assistant coaches are a factor in who he hires for those positions. Dino answered the second one first and stated that he wasn’t going to discuss anything about the future of the defensive coordinator’s position, (which partially defused my first question). “Recruiting is a big part of putting a staff together. Moving up the ladder, you want to take care of the people who got you there. We’ve done some above average recruiting in the Baltimore area. Chris Slayton was a man. He had everything you wanted in terms of size and temperament for a 3 technique. The loss of McKinley Williams was big. But we had to grow him up to be what he is. We need to keep recruiting, keep eating and keep growing. Slayton and Williams together were everything we needed at that position.
Jim in Sandy Creek wanted to know about hiring an offensive coordinator. He suggested Bill Fowler, who Dino apparently was not familiar with. Jim said he had recently retired and was thus available. (I googled him and was unable to find a football coach by that name.) Jim also alerted Dino to Joe Benedict, who set a state rushing record at Sand Creek High School a couple of years back. Joe went to Brockport State but is not on their roster this season. I was unable to find out why. His twitter feed is all about Brockport football, (they are in the DIII playoffs again this season. Maybe he is redshirting or sitting the season out with an injury. You’d think he’d still be on the roster. Anyway, Dino politely told Jim that he’d look into those names. “We’re always looking for the best players” I hope he can find out more than I did.
What is the team’s motivation for playing this game? (On the Orange Nation radio show today, they discussed this at length and came to the conclusion that there was none.) “You play for your brothers. You play for the seniors. 97% of college players won’t play in the NFL. This is their last chance to play together. You want to send them out with a win.” Dino discussed, as he did in his press conference Monday, the seniors we don’t know who played on the scout team. “It’s very rare to go through your entire career and never have been on the scout team. You get the freshman who doesn’t yet know your offense or defense who mimics the other team’s plays for your starters. (If they can mimic the other team’s plays, why can’t they learn your plays?) Then you have the injured player who’s sitting out.” He said that there are guys in the NFL who have played on the scout team in college at some point.” There’s somebody- I want to say Rashad Salam- who won the Heisman and never played 11 man football until he got to college. He played 7 on 7.”
I called in my first question but focused on the “what do we need to do” part of it rather than asking what he’d be looking for in a defensive coordinator, since he’d said he wouldn’t discuss that. Dino pointed out that we managed to win 10 games with the 88th ranked defense and that the trend until this year was one of improvement: 122 to 106 to 88. He expected that to continue this year. “Clemson had an 86 yard drive to beat us last year. We lost to Pittsburgh in overtime. Dungey went down early in the Notre Dame game. We Could have won the division, the league and wound up in the playoff. Any time we can get our defense higher than that, (88th), we’ll have a good year. This was supposed to be a year where the offense was down, (it was?) and the defense was up. We will be better on offense next year and must be better on defense, although we will have some new people. The stepchildren in the conference, (the teams with poor records), will get better next year and even better the year after that.
A caller asked about Markenzy Pierre, saying that he’d looked at his high school highlights and he seemed to have everything you wanted in a running back. DB: “Beauty is in the ey of the beholder. Moe Neal has done a fantastic job for us. We brought in Abdul Adams from Oklahoma. Jarveon Howard came from the same high school in Mississippi Walter Payton went to. Now we are seeing what Jawhar Jordan can do. Markenzy’’s on the scout team, working at his craft. We really do have an upgrade at that position. Once we get the offensive line and tight ends where we want them to be you’ll see what our running backs can do. The called asked if Markenzy will be staying with the team. Dino: “I hope so.”
In my SU football preview I pointed out that Markenzy’ high school highlights looked very much like Howards, that he was virtually the same size (Howard is 5-10 213, Pierre 5-11 214)and that Markenzy was playing Florida, where the quality of high school football is very strong, probably moreso than Mississippi:
Markenzy: Jarveon: Showtime
Can you tell them apart?
Actually, I confess I made it a little harder by switching the names. But the coaches can tell them apart. They’ve seen them up close and graded not only games but practices. Markenzy’s problem is that he’s going to be a junior next year, as will Jarveon while Adams will be a senior and Jordan a sophomore. He can’t just out-last these guys. He’s got to out-perform them or hope there are a wave of injuries, (not that he would actually hope for that), so he could get a shot.
Both Gomez and Matt Park asked about the decision on whether to play Jordan in Saturday’s game, which would cost and the school a year of eligibility. DB: “We’re not flipping a coin about these things. A lot of thought goes into this….When you think you’ve got somebody real good, he might not stay here. Most of our football players get their degrees in 3 ½ years so they don’t have to stay.”
Gomez asked if Coach will be watching any of those NFL games in Thursday. He repeated “I’m not an NFL guy. I just watch some of my old players.” In the segment that I missed last week, they discussed an upcoming poll on who was the greatest NFL running back of all time and Coach made his predictions, which turned out to be pretty accurate. Jim Brown is #1. “My Dad’s pick. Bill Belichick said he’d put him in there now if it was 3rd and 1. I just saw him out in LA recently and he’s still the biggest guy in the room, as are Floyd Little and Larry Csonka. They are old now and not as big as they used to be but are still an intimidating presence.”
Earl Campbell was on the list. Dino recalls a highlight where he ran right through a Rams linebacker, “making him look like a Pop Warner player – and this guy had been to 4 pro Bowls” (I was not able to locate it). Then there was Walter Payton. “There was a highlight where he ran over 7-8 Cowboys. Jim Brown said that the first time he saw him, he jumped out of his seat.” Dino once interned with the Lions when Barry sanders was there. He saw a practice where Sanders beat Chris Spielman twice in a row with two different moves, neither of which Dino has ever seen before or since, even by Sanders. Spielman was crazy. Barry was going through the motions, assuming he wouldn’t be hit when Spielman hit him with full out game speed. They were in pads but not full uniforms, Everybody was laughing. When Barry got the ball, everybody was at the point of attack.
Kevin, a patron at the Pressroom Pub asked how Dino, a native of Hawaii, was adjusting to Central New York winters. DB: “A football coach can work anywhere”. Other people can be shoveling snow or be at the beach and we’re working inside. When you talk about spring, summer and fall, you can’t beat Central New York. (And as Jim Boeheim says, in the winter you’ve got SU basketball.)
Tom called in to ask what aspects of human performance in football hadn’t been measured that the Coach would like to be able to measure if he could. Dino said he’s going to treat that question like a curve ball and hold back for a moment, waiting for it to break. Finally he said he wished we could measure ‘heart’ and find out who has ‘It’ and who doesn’t. Tom asked what ‘it’ was. I always thought “It” was Clara Bow. Clara Bow: The original ‘It Girl’
To Dino Babers ‘It’ is Lamar Jackson, Barry Sanders, Dick Butkus and Ronnie Lott, who once cut off his index finger so he could play in the Super Bowl. Actually he had it amputated because bone graft surgery would not have allowed him to star the 1986 season: Ronnie Lott - Wikipedia
It must have been frustrating when he felt like giving someone “the finger”.
Gomez pointed out an anomaly: Lamar Jackson may be the NFL MVP this year while Joe Burrow may win the Heisman trophy. Burrow is older than Lamar by two months. “If you have Lamar Jackson, you are coach of the year. When he’s gone, you are unemployed.”
A patron named Justin asked what traditions Dino had instituted and what traditions he would like to bring back. Dino last year started what he calls the “Senior Walk”, where, after the final home game, (and Hawaii, where he learned it, always ended their season at home). he pulls the team off the field when the game is over, then brings the seniors back out and they circumnavigate the field, waving to and talking with the fans. “At Hawaii the fans never left and we had 50,000 there for the Senior Walk, with the ones who wanted to say something down at the bottom. We will continue that as long as I’m here.” A tradition he’s thinking of bringing back from his Hawaii days is to start all the seniors, although some of them play the same position. “You got to play until you made a mistake.” Matt recalled that UNC basketball does a similar thing. The seniors play until the first TV time out.
He also reported that Chris Frederick currently has the nation’s longest streak of games started. Fortunately he’s a senior and could still start in this game. “He does things that are fantastic and some things that are not. It’s like a father to a son. We love him so much that we will punish him when he does wrong.” All of this is apparently a reference to Chris’s tendency to celebrate his plays with the fans.
He talked about Antwan Cordy, who he first discovered working out in their indoor practice facility, (would it have been Manley then?) all by himself “I didn’t know who he was but I figured if this team is ready to practice, we might as well get going.” He started spring practice three weeks early because of Cordy. (Thanks, Pal!) Our other safety Evan Foster will always remember that he was the guy who knocked Trevor Lawrence out of last year’s game. “Alton Robinson’s game has grabbed the community with passion.” He said that Kendall Coleman will be etched in stone outside of the football building. He repeated the story from his presser about Coleman grading out at 100% during his first practice as a freshman. “I said that it’s not 1005 unless I say it’s 100%). It came up a little short of that but was still the highest grade he’s ever given a freshman in his first practice.
Dino has no plans for his final address to the team. “He’ll (God) give me the words tell me what to say.” Dino said that in practice today eh asked the seniors to come up to the front and face the team. “They are more than enough reason to want to win this game. Most of them aren’t going to continue to play the game beyond Saturday. There’s no health club football. They’ll have to just root for somebody else and watch their kids play. I lost the last game I ever played. It was really disappointing. It still hurts. We want them to walk out of the Dome victorious. It will be a changing of the guard from 2019 to 2020.”
I called in my second question. The coach corrected me. He remembers a touchdown Sean Riley scored against Maryland. But he agreed that the lack of production form those two this year after the big numbers they put up last year has been frustrating. “They both had injuries early in the season. We’ve faced different schemes as other teams have adjusted to what we were doing with them.” I asked about the kick returns. He said that opposing teams had also made adjustments to combat the success we had on special teams last year. We also lost some key special teams players. They decided to use Jawhar Jordan to return kickoffs “to get him some touches so we could decide what to do with him.” The question about smaller players losing their speed and agility due to hits was not really addressed.
Sean from Memphis wondered how Dino would motivate the team for this game. DB: “How did Herm Edwards motivate his team to beat Oregon? You play to win the game.” Matt recalled that Doug Marrone was on the jets staff when Edwards first said that. After the left the press conference, he told Doug “I think I stirred some things up around here.”
Another caller asked why our special teams didn’t seem to be as good as last year’s. He asked how we are going to use Jawhar Jordan, who he compared to Reggie Bush. Dino reminded him that Bush was around 200 pounds. “I’m not going there yet. We need to pump the breaks- that’s how this whole season started. Jordan has a chance to be good but he’s not great yet”. He told a story about Reggie Bush, who he coached against when Bush was at USC and Dino was at UCLA. “I’m standing on the sideline and Reggies coming right at me. Then he plants his foot 3 inches from the sideline and WOOSH! He’s off on a 75 yard touchdown run.” As to the special teams, “Other teams really bore down to do a better job against us.”
Vinnie in Syracuse wanted to know what Dino’s favorite saying by a coach was. Matt said he would offer a couple of classics. Dino said that some of the classics aren’t appropriate. Matt likes John McKay being asked what he thought of his team’s execution and saying that he was in favor of it and Bum Phillips said that he brings his wife with him on the road “because she’s too ugly to kiss goodbye.” Dino likes Bud Grants key to success: A good wife, a good dog and a good quarterback, not necessarily in that order.” Matt said that’s someone to lean on, someone to listen to and somebody who can win games.
A caller wondered what the negative impact of a game like the Maryland game might have had on 18-20 year olds. (I know the affect it had on me and I’m 66.) Matt suggested that losing close games to North Carolina State and Pittsburgh had “more to do with setting the tone for the season than the Maryland game. Dino disagreed. He told the kids after the Maryland game “This one will hurt more than you know… When a team scores on the first 6-7 possessions, it’s the coaches who weren’t ready.” He said “We needed some things to come together for our expectations to come together. We didn’t have the breaks we needed. What I say to my team about the opposition and what I might say in a news conference are two different things. I told them that the tam with the best personnel doesn’t always win. It’s the team that plays the best. That’s what I like about football: unlike basketball where you can play a team twice, you get only one chance.
Jack called in to ask about the status of Qadir White and Cooper Lutz and what kind of role they might play next season. DB:L “Qadir is on our scout team. We have to get him in a situation where he is in shape to help us. Cooper does a good job with simulation on the scout team.”
Matt noted that we were 21st in the country in red zone scoring and are 109th this year. DB: “It’s Dungey’s legs. When they are in man coverage you want to either give the ball to a dynamic runner or have him block so that the quarterback can run and not get hit in the backfield. We didn’t have the quarterback depth we thought we had, (he might have said we thought we would have, which would mean he’s talking about Chance Amie, not Clayton Welch). Last year we had two quarterbacks who could play so we could be more aggressive with running the quarterback.”
Bill from Liverpool asked Dino to handicap the Heisman race. DB: “As long as I’ve been coaching people have always said that if LSU ever had a quarterback they’d win it all. The SEC is not known for their quarterbacks.” They discussed some famous SEC quarterbacks of the past: Joe Namath, Kenny Stabler, Bert Jones, etc. But that was a long time ago.
What about Wake forest? “Their quarterback, (Jamie Newman), is very dynamic, very Dungeyish. He can run the ball and he can throw deep. You can’t let him do both. They have a top nose tackle and an edge rusher who is very good. They have #36, (Cade Carney) who ran for 1,000 yard last year. They are having the kind of season we had last year.
They ended with Matt talking to Kramer Cook and Landan Salem, our recruiting “brain trust” (Directors of Recruiting Operations and Player Personnel, respectively). They talked about losing a week of recruiting due to the second bye week, which is a ‘silent’ period. They have a bunch of players coming into the Dome for Saturday’s game and there will be more during the basketball season, when they can at least see the building and other facilities and get an idea of the fan base. The early signing day is December 18th. They are also looking at transfer portal guys, too. One guy who caught three passes for Penn State against Ohio State has ‘entered the portal’. (That would be Justin Shorter:
www.espn.com
They are “comfortable and excited” about the commitments they’ve gotten and the visits that are coming up.
Matt didn’t say anything about any end of season show so I assume this was their last for this year.
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 – 6 pm; Thursday, Oct. 31 – 6 pm
Thursday, Nov. 14 – 6 pm; Thursday, Nov. 21 – 6 pm; Tuesday, Nov. 26 – 6 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, we are currently ranked #111 in the country in total defense. In your first three years we ranked 122nd, 106th and 88th (of 130 teams). What do we need to improve those rankings significantly and what will you be looking for in the candidates for the defensive coordinator job next year?”
Second Hour:
“Coach, through 11 games Sean Riley and Nykeim Johnson have 54 receptions for 356 yards and 1TD. Last year, in 13 games they had 105 catches for 1,321 yards and 7TDs. Last year they returned 36 kicks for 641 yards a touchdown. This year they have returned 34 kicks for 463 yards and no scores. I watched Jawhar Jordan run through Louisville like greased lightning and it made me wonder: Do smaller players lose their speed and elusiveness through a four year career because of all the hits they take?”
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.)
(Program notes: the Dino Babers Show will be from 6PM-8PM the rest of the season. The Jim Boeheim Show, which begins on Tuesday, 11/12, will still be from 7PM-9PM. The Boeheim Show will be on Tuesday for the first two weeks, (11/12-11/19), then move to Thursdays. The Babers show will be on Tuesday the 26th with no Jim Boeheim Show that week.)
Gomez asked about the schedule for Thanksgiving. Dino said that the team would practice early Thanksgiving morning, (how would like to do that?) Then players will try to get home to see their families. The ones that stay we try to put with local families or with the coach’s families.
Gomez said that the coach had told everyone last week that Louisville had plenty of speed and they proved him right. Dino: I’ve learned that the football fans of Central New York are very knowledgeable and I wouldn’t tell them anything that wasn’t true. It was not such a great day for one of our offensive lineman, although they did well overall. Our defense vs. Buffalo, (?) was odd and the Louisville game was even. (??) They exploited one young man in particular.
John in Baltimore called in to ask two questions. One was if we will be getting in some bigger guys to play defensive tackle. The other was whether the recruiting connections of assistant coaches are a factor in who he hires for those positions. Dino answered the second one first and stated that he wasn’t going to discuss anything about the future of the defensive coordinator’s position, (which partially defused my first question). “Recruiting is a big part of putting a staff together. Moving up the ladder, you want to take care of the people who got you there. We’ve done some above average recruiting in the Baltimore area. Chris Slayton was a man. He had everything you wanted in terms of size and temperament for a 3 technique. The loss of McKinley Williams was big. But we had to grow him up to be what he is. We need to keep recruiting, keep eating and keep growing. Slayton and Williams together were everything we needed at that position.
Jim in Sandy Creek wanted to know about hiring an offensive coordinator. He suggested Bill Fowler, who Dino apparently was not familiar with. Jim said he had recently retired and was thus available. (I googled him and was unable to find a football coach by that name.) Jim also alerted Dino to Joe Benedict, who set a state rushing record at Sand Creek High School a couple of years back. Joe went to Brockport State but is not on their roster this season. I was unable to find out why. His twitter feed is all about Brockport football, (they are in the DIII playoffs again this season. Maybe he is redshirting or sitting the season out with an injury. You’d think he’d still be on the roster. Anyway, Dino politely told Jim that he’d look into those names. “We’re always looking for the best players” I hope he can find out more than I did.
What is the team’s motivation for playing this game? (On the Orange Nation radio show today, they discussed this at length and came to the conclusion that there was none.) “You play for your brothers. You play for the seniors. 97% of college players won’t play in the NFL. This is their last chance to play together. You want to send them out with a win.” Dino discussed, as he did in his press conference Monday, the seniors we don’t know who played on the scout team. “It’s very rare to go through your entire career and never have been on the scout team. You get the freshman who doesn’t yet know your offense or defense who mimics the other team’s plays for your starters. (If they can mimic the other team’s plays, why can’t they learn your plays?) Then you have the injured player who’s sitting out.” He said that there are guys in the NFL who have played on the scout team in college at some point.” There’s somebody- I want to say Rashad Salam- who won the Heisman and never played 11 man football until he got to college. He played 7 on 7.”
I called in my first question but focused on the “what do we need to do” part of it rather than asking what he’d be looking for in a defensive coordinator, since he’d said he wouldn’t discuss that. Dino pointed out that we managed to win 10 games with the 88th ranked defense and that the trend until this year was one of improvement: 122 to 106 to 88. He expected that to continue this year. “Clemson had an 86 yard drive to beat us last year. We lost to Pittsburgh in overtime. Dungey went down early in the Notre Dame game. We Could have won the division, the league and wound up in the playoff. Any time we can get our defense higher than that, (88th), we’ll have a good year. This was supposed to be a year where the offense was down, (it was?) and the defense was up. We will be better on offense next year and must be better on defense, although we will have some new people. The stepchildren in the conference, (the teams with poor records), will get better next year and even better the year after that.
A caller asked about Markenzy Pierre, saying that he’d looked at his high school highlights and he seemed to have everything you wanted in a running back. DB: “Beauty is in the ey of the beholder. Moe Neal has done a fantastic job for us. We brought in Abdul Adams from Oklahoma. Jarveon Howard came from the same high school in Mississippi Walter Payton went to. Now we are seeing what Jawhar Jordan can do. Markenzy’’s on the scout team, working at his craft. We really do have an upgrade at that position. Once we get the offensive line and tight ends where we want them to be you’ll see what our running backs can do. The called asked if Markenzy will be staying with the team. Dino: “I hope so.”
In my SU football preview I pointed out that Markenzy’ high school highlights looked very much like Howards, that he was virtually the same size (Howard is 5-10 213, Pierre 5-11 214)and that Markenzy was playing Florida, where the quality of high school football is very strong, probably moreso than Mississippi:
Markenzy: Jarveon: Showtime
Can you tell them apart?
Actually, I confess I made it a little harder by switching the names. But the coaches can tell them apart. They’ve seen them up close and graded not only games but practices. Markenzy’s problem is that he’s going to be a junior next year, as will Jarveon while Adams will be a senior and Jordan a sophomore. He can’t just out-last these guys. He’s got to out-perform them or hope there are a wave of injuries, (not that he would actually hope for that), so he could get a shot.
Both Gomez and Matt Park asked about the decision on whether to play Jordan in Saturday’s game, which would cost and the school a year of eligibility. DB: “We’re not flipping a coin about these things. A lot of thought goes into this….When you think you’ve got somebody real good, he might not stay here. Most of our football players get their degrees in 3 ½ years so they don’t have to stay.”
Gomez asked if Coach will be watching any of those NFL games in Thursday. He repeated “I’m not an NFL guy. I just watch some of my old players.” In the segment that I missed last week, they discussed an upcoming poll on who was the greatest NFL running back of all time and Coach made his predictions, which turned out to be pretty accurate. Jim Brown is #1. “My Dad’s pick. Bill Belichick said he’d put him in there now if it was 3rd and 1. I just saw him out in LA recently and he’s still the biggest guy in the room, as are Floyd Little and Larry Csonka. They are old now and not as big as they used to be but are still an intimidating presence.”
Earl Campbell was on the list. Dino recalls a highlight where he ran right through a Rams linebacker, “making him look like a Pop Warner player – and this guy had been to 4 pro Bowls” (I was not able to locate it). Then there was Walter Payton. “There was a highlight where he ran over 7-8 Cowboys. Jim Brown said that the first time he saw him, he jumped out of his seat.” Dino once interned with the Lions when Barry sanders was there. He saw a practice where Sanders beat Chris Spielman twice in a row with two different moves, neither of which Dino has ever seen before or since, even by Sanders. Spielman was crazy. Barry was going through the motions, assuming he wouldn’t be hit when Spielman hit him with full out game speed. They were in pads but not full uniforms, Everybody was laughing. When Barry got the ball, everybody was at the point of attack.
Kevin, a patron at the Pressroom Pub asked how Dino, a native of Hawaii, was adjusting to Central New York winters. DB: “A football coach can work anywhere”. Other people can be shoveling snow or be at the beach and we’re working inside. When you talk about spring, summer and fall, you can’t beat Central New York. (And as Jim Boeheim says, in the winter you’ve got SU basketball.)
Tom called in to ask what aspects of human performance in football hadn’t been measured that the Coach would like to be able to measure if he could. Dino said he’s going to treat that question like a curve ball and hold back for a moment, waiting for it to break. Finally he said he wished we could measure ‘heart’ and find out who has ‘It’ and who doesn’t. Tom asked what ‘it’ was. I always thought “It” was Clara Bow. Clara Bow: The original ‘It Girl’
To Dino Babers ‘It’ is Lamar Jackson, Barry Sanders, Dick Butkus and Ronnie Lott, who once cut off his index finger so he could play in the Super Bowl. Actually he had it amputated because bone graft surgery would not have allowed him to star the 1986 season: Ronnie Lott - Wikipedia
It must have been frustrating when he felt like giving someone “the finger”.
Gomez pointed out an anomaly: Lamar Jackson may be the NFL MVP this year while Joe Burrow may win the Heisman trophy. Burrow is older than Lamar by two months. “If you have Lamar Jackson, you are coach of the year. When he’s gone, you are unemployed.”
A patron named Justin asked what traditions Dino had instituted and what traditions he would like to bring back. Dino last year started what he calls the “Senior Walk”, where, after the final home game, (and Hawaii, where he learned it, always ended their season at home). he pulls the team off the field when the game is over, then brings the seniors back out and they circumnavigate the field, waving to and talking with the fans. “At Hawaii the fans never left and we had 50,000 there for the Senior Walk, with the ones who wanted to say something down at the bottom. We will continue that as long as I’m here.” A tradition he’s thinking of bringing back from his Hawaii days is to start all the seniors, although some of them play the same position. “You got to play until you made a mistake.” Matt recalled that UNC basketball does a similar thing. The seniors play until the first TV time out.
He also reported that Chris Frederick currently has the nation’s longest streak of games started. Fortunately he’s a senior and could still start in this game. “He does things that are fantastic and some things that are not. It’s like a father to a son. We love him so much that we will punish him when he does wrong.” All of this is apparently a reference to Chris’s tendency to celebrate his plays with the fans.
He talked about Antwan Cordy, who he first discovered working out in their indoor practice facility, (would it have been Manley then?) all by himself “I didn’t know who he was but I figured if this team is ready to practice, we might as well get going.” He started spring practice three weeks early because of Cordy. (Thanks, Pal!) Our other safety Evan Foster will always remember that he was the guy who knocked Trevor Lawrence out of last year’s game. “Alton Robinson’s game has grabbed the community with passion.” He said that Kendall Coleman will be etched in stone outside of the football building. He repeated the story from his presser about Coleman grading out at 100% during his first practice as a freshman. “I said that it’s not 1005 unless I say it’s 100%). It came up a little short of that but was still the highest grade he’s ever given a freshman in his first practice.
Dino has no plans for his final address to the team. “He’ll (God) give me the words tell me what to say.” Dino said that in practice today eh asked the seniors to come up to the front and face the team. “They are more than enough reason to want to win this game. Most of them aren’t going to continue to play the game beyond Saturday. There’s no health club football. They’ll have to just root for somebody else and watch their kids play. I lost the last game I ever played. It was really disappointing. It still hurts. We want them to walk out of the Dome victorious. It will be a changing of the guard from 2019 to 2020.”
I called in my second question. The coach corrected me. He remembers a touchdown Sean Riley scored against Maryland. But he agreed that the lack of production form those two this year after the big numbers they put up last year has been frustrating. “They both had injuries early in the season. We’ve faced different schemes as other teams have adjusted to what we were doing with them.” I asked about the kick returns. He said that opposing teams had also made adjustments to combat the success we had on special teams last year. We also lost some key special teams players. They decided to use Jawhar Jordan to return kickoffs “to get him some touches so we could decide what to do with him.” The question about smaller players losing their speed and agility due to hits was not really addressed.
Sean from Memphis wondered how Dino would motivate the team for this game. DB: “How did Herm Edwards motivate his team to beat Oregon? You play to win the game.” Matt recalled that Doug Marrone was on the jets staff when Edwards first said that. After the left the press conference, he told Doug “I think I stirred some things up around here.”
Another caller asked why our special teams didn’t seem to be as good as last year’s. He asked how we are going to use Jawhar Jordan, who he compared to Reggie Bush. Dino reminded him that Bush was around 200 pounds. “I’m not going there yet. We need to pump the breaks- that’s how this whole season started. Jordan has a chance to be good but he’s not great yet”. He told a story about Reggie Bush, who he coached against when Bush was at USC and Dino was at UCLA. “I’m standing on the sideline and Reggies coming right at me. Then he plants his foot 3 inches from the sideline and WOOSH! He’s off on a 75 yard touchdown run.” As to the special teams, “Other teams really bore down to do a better job against us.”
Vinnie in Syracuse wanted to know what Dino’s favorite saying by a coach was. Matt said he would offer a couple of classics. Dino said that some of the classics aren’t appropriate. Matt likes John McKay being asked what he thought of his team’s execution and saying that he was in favor of it and Bum Phillips said that he brings his wife with him on the road “because she’s too ugly to kiss goodbye.” Dino likes Bud Grants key to success: A good wife, a good dog and a good quarterback, not necessarily in that order.” Matt said that’s someone to lean on, someone to listen to and somebody who can win games.
A caller wondered what the negative impact of a game like the Maryland game might have had on 18-20 year olds. (I know the affect it had on me and I’m 66.) Matt suggested that losing close games to North Carolina State and Pittsburgh had “more to do with setting the tone for the season than the Maryland game. Dino disagreed. He told the kids after the Maryland game “This one will hurt more than you know… When a team scores on the first 6-7 possessions, it’s the coaches who weren’t ready.” He said “We needed some things to come together for our expectations to come together. We didn’t have the breaks we needed. What I say to my team about the opposition and what I might say in a news conference are two different things. I told them that the tam with the best personnel doesn’t always win. It’s the team that plays the best. That’s what I like about football: unlike basketball where you can play a team twice, you get only one chance.
Jack called in to ask about the status of Qadir White and Cooper Lutz and what kind of role they might play next season. DB:L “Qadir is on our scout team. We have to get him in a situation where he is in shape to help us. Cooper does a good job with simulation on the scout team.”
Matt noted that we were 21st in the country in red zone scoring and are 109th this year. DB: “It’s Dungey’s legs. When they are in man coverage you want to either give the ball to a dynamic runner or have him block so that the quarterback can run and not get hit in the backfield. We didn’t have the quarterback depth we thought we had, (he might have said we thought we would have, which would mean he’s talking about Chance Amie, not Clayton Welch). Last year we had two quarterbacks who could play so we could be more aggressive with running the quarterback.”
Bill from Liverpool asked Dino to handicap the Heisman race. DB: “As long as I’ve been coaching people have always said that if LSU ever had a quarterback they’d win it all. The SEC is not known for their quarterbacks.” They discussed some famous SEC quarterbacks of the past: Joe Namath, Kenny Stabler, Bert Jones, etc. But that was a long time ago.
What about Wake forest? “Their quarterback, (Jamie Newman), is very dynamic, very Dungeyish. He can run the ball and he can throw deep. You can’t let him do both. They have a top nose tackle and an edge rusher who is very good. They have #36, (Cade Carney) who ran for 1,000 yard last year. They are having the kind of season we had last year.
They ended with Matt talking to Kramer Cook and Landan Salem, our recruiting “brain trust” (Directors of Recruiting Operations and Player Personnel, respectively). They talked about losing a week of recruiting due to the second bye week, which is a ‘silent’ period. They have a bunch of players coming into the Dome for Saturday’s game and there will be more during the basketball season, when they can at least see the building and other facilities and get an idea of the fan base. The early signing day is December 18th. They are also looking at transfer portal guys, too. One guy who caught three passes for Penn State against Ohio State has ‘entered the portal’. (That would be Justin Shorter:
Source: Penn State WR Shorter plans to transfer
Penn State wide receiver Justin Shorter has entered the transfer portal, a source told ESPN.
Matt didn’t say anything about any end of season show so I assume this was their last for this year.
