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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):
Submit a Question! - Syracuse University Athletics
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, lost in the defeat by Clemson were some terrific performances by Sterling Hofrichter, who averaged 52 net yards on 9 punts that were as high as they were long and Chris Frederick made one of the great interceptions I have seen, covering his man, tipping the ball away and then catching it. Trill Williams also had a big interception.
Unfortunately, we weren’t taking very good advantage of those opportunities. One way we could take better advantage of them is to use the tight end, who can catch short passes over the middle and in the end zone. Ravian Pierce caught 7 touchdown passes in his two years here. I notice that Aaron Hackett and Luke Benson each caught two passes and Benson had a 24 yard gain on one of them. Will we be seeing more passes to the tight ends moving forward?”
Second Hour:
“Coach, our defense started the Clemson game giving the wide receivers big cushions and Trevor Lawrence could just play catch with them. Then we started playing tight coverage and our pass rushers had time to pressure Lawrence. The result was 17 incompletions and two interceptions and two quarters in which the game was in doubt before things went against us in the end. We won’t be playing a team like Clemson again and we have some good athletes in our defensive backfield. Will we be continuing with the tight coverage?”
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 said that the Clemson build-up was over and now it’s back to the routine of college football: preparing for the next game. HCDB: “You only get 12 opportunities each year and they can all beat you. You have to make sure a loss doesn’t beat you twice.”
Matt pointed out that this was only the third time in Dino’s tenure here that we didn’t cross the goal line. Dino was hoping he wouldn’t point that out but felt better when matt said it was against the 3rd, 3rd and #1 teams in the country. (That would be Clemson in 2017, Notre Dame in 2018 and this game.) Coach said that made him feel a little better.
The 1979 team that broke a 13 year bowl draught by going to the Independence Bowl was being feted in the back room of the press Room Pub. I didn’t get whether there will be a ceremony honoring them at the game or not.
On the Clemson game: It was the first sell-out in over 20 years. “We got very positive feedback from the fans as to their experience. I had to take a moment and survey the Dome before we went on. It was a dream come true.“ Think back to his introductory news conference in 2016, he called looking at this crowd “a really touching moment”. I later pointed out to the coach that panorama.com had taken a gigapixel 360 degree view of the Dome. He’s aware of it and has seen it and they will be using it in their recruiting. “Think of what we were able to do to Clemson thanks to the crowd noise. If we can do that to a team that’s been to all these important games, imagine what we could do a team that’s never experienced it before…..They were undefeated last year and we were undefeated at home. We need to be 11-1 in our last twelve games when we meet them again.”
“We had no lack of opportunity to win the game. Those guys just beat us- they are good….I wanted to see some fight in the team, regardless of the score and I saw that. We did some good things but didn’t take advent age of our opportunities, as a tema and as a family.” What happened on the goal line? “Just no push. We ran the ball twice for one yard. We had over 1800 pounds of fun up there and we need to be able to run it through a brick wall. If you can’t move the ball three yards in four plays, you don’t deserve to win…..we have the best placekicker in college football. That doesn’t make us conservative. It makes us aggressive, knowing that he has our back.”
Someone complained about our offensive not going fast enough. Matt said that we get our tempo going, “the results are usually impressive- we can make a first down, then snap it and usually get 7-8 yards”. DB: “You tickle me. I love it when the announcers and the fans can feel it. The faster we go, the calmer we play. In practice we ran 8 straight plays at tempo and one lineman was turning red. I had to call a time out and the other linemen were all mad at me for doing it. You can only go as fast as your slowest lineman. For some of them and some wide receivers it was their third or fourth game at tempo. They will be up to speed better in the 4th to the 6th game.” (There’s that phrase again- the next three games will be very interesting.)
Adam Terry told mat that Dwight Freeney put him in the NFL. He faced him every day in practice and had to get better to compete with him. Dino: Iron sharpens iron.”
On Western Michigan: “They are going to score points. We have to find a way to get things rolling….they have 8-9 guys back on defense. On offense, Jon Wassink is a veteran quarterback, Levanter Bellamy is averaging 7-8 yards per carry and D’Wayne Eskeridge is playing both ways now. ”
I called in my first question, (which he pronounced “a fantastic question”). He wants to sue the tight ends, the running back and the slot backs to give the quarterback quick targets to throw to. “We don’t want to be heavy-handed. We don’t want the other team to dictate where the ball goes. We have a lot of ways to get the ball to to somebody who gets hot. We want to spread the ball around. We want to give ourselves options to create diversity and to cover ourselves in case of an injury.”
Manny from Tampa praised the coach for bringing the team back out to listen to the alma mater. It’s bene a tradition since he came here to listen to it but after the defeat, some players didn’t go and others didn’t pay much attention to it so Dino insisted they come back out and then had them gather at the big “S” in the center of the field to “reflect on things”. Many called it “a great life lesson”. DB: Football is the greatest game in the world, despite the doubters. It makes you into a good person, a good citizen and a good father.” (Really?) After the game Dino sought out #11 on their defensive team, (Isaiah Simmons), who is “a fantastic NFL prospect” and Tanner Mayes, who scored twice against us in past games. “We made sure he didn’t score in this one”.
John in Baltimore was concerned that our wide receivers were too skinny and wondered if Cam Jordan, Russell Thompson-Bishop and Kevin Mital, (our heaviest wide-outs), could get into the game, especially in the red zone. DB: “They may look thin but they are explosive. We have a couple of little guys but they can change direction rapidly and have made some big plays in our ACC games. These next games will be an opportunity for other players to prove that they need more playing time. The guys who don’t quit and never get up are the ones who obtain their goals. We’ll have a better evaluation of the team before we go back into ACC play.” Matt added that we’ll have a couple of bye weeks coming up that will “space out” the schedule which will help with the team’s injuries. Gomez later said that he’d interviewed some of our wide receivers in the spring and “OMG. They aren’t as big as the Clemson receivers but they are bigger and stronger and leaners than our receivers have been in past years, except for the two smaller guys.”
Lee in Tully had a rambling question, asking “How are you doing so far” but commenting that the offensive line is pretty bad and Tommy DeVito was “running for his life”. Dino: “We all just need to take a deep breath and relax. We have three new offensive linemen. Guys are making mistakes at running back and among the receivers. The defense is playing better. We haven’t lost a game on special teams – we need to win them. The bye weeks are coming up.”
Kim McCloud, our cornerbacks coach, was interviewed at the end of the first hour. Matt described the cornerbacks as “a strength of the team – you can never have enough of them”. McCloud: “You always want your unit to be the best on the team. We aren’t there yet.” About our famous defensive ends: “we are working to make sure they get one on one opportunities so they can attack.” He said that trill Williams was “working on his agility” and Iffy Melifonwu was “day to day”. But “we are deep in guys who can help us win.” On Antwan Cordy: “He lost some jump balls with 6-4 guys but there were many good plays that went unnoticed. He’s a great addition because he can play multiple positons.” Scoop Bradshaw has been nursing a hand injury but “he’ll be playing a great deal down the stretch”.
Gomez asked their producer, Paulie if he’d ever heard a louder crowd at the Dome. He suggested the first SU-Duke basketball game back in 2013.
I called in my second question, about the tight coverage of the defensive backs. Dino: “Imagine you in a fast car that’s a convertible and you can feel the air whizzing past you. What am I talking about? You feel the danger. Playing really fast receivers really close is scary. We had to re-motivate and stimulate our players to get in their grill. It’s actually a lot easier to defend them when you get right in front of them. Western Michigan has a very fast receiver (D’Wayne Eskeridge), who we couldn’t catch last year so we might have to go back to playing off him."
Gomez asked what Babers remembers of what goes on “at the bottom of the pile”. He said he’d heard there were “no rules”, that “big guys don’t smell good” and that players “don’t cut their finger nails”. He heard one guy was lactose intolerant and would drink milk before games to prepare for the pile-ups. He wondered what some of the stories the coach could tell might be. Dino: “Where are you getting your information from? Big Brother is always watching until there is a pile up. Good teams know to make the pile bigger and if something is going on, they don’t peel off. He’s heard someone scream and a voice say that he wouldn’t stop unless the opponent gave the ball up. It’s like Las Vegas – what goes on there, stays there.”
They talked about football movies. “Any Given Sunday” is “just a movie, not the real thing”. Coach likes “Remember the Titans” and will “go to anything with Sylvester Stallone in it – but not during the season.” Gomez had some quotes from Rocky movies: ”Success is a culmination of failures”; “A champion is a contender who never gave up” and “If you know what you are worth, get what you are worth”. Coach liked the first two more than the third.
There was an incident in which someone sold a playoff on E-Bay. DB: “That’s why we don’t use playbooks. A coach could get a job with someone else or a player could transfer. When they do, we change our coding.
He hopes Eric Dungey catches on with the browns. “These things are usually by word of mouth. There may have bene a Giant scout who knew someone in the Browns organization and recommended him.
Gomez’s daughter just got married to the guy who cooked for Tim Tebo when he was in Syracuse. Coach met Tebo when he interviewed for a job with Florida in 2008. “He was a wide guy, a big dude. He’s very spiritual, a very pure and fine young man.” Tebo is doing things like hosting talk shows, doing football commentary and will still play baseball. His motto: “You don’t prioritize your schedule. You schedule your priorities.” Coach likes that.
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
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, lost in the defeat by Clemson were some terrific performances by Sterling Hofrichter, who averaged 52 net yards on 9 punts that were as high as they were long and Chris Frederick made one of the great interceptions I have seen, covering his man, tipping the ball away and then catching it. Trill Williams also had a big interception.
Unfortunately, we weren’t taking very good advantage of those opportunities. One way we could take better advantage of them is to use the tight end, who can catch short passes over the middle and in the end zone. Ravian Pierce caught 7 touchdown passes in his two years here. I notice that Aaron Hackett and Luke Benson each caught two passes and Benson had a 24 yard gain on one of them. Will we be seeing more passes to the tight ends moving forward?”
Second Hour:
“Coach, our defense started the Clemson game giving the wide receivers big cushions and Trevor Lawrence could just play catch with them. Then we started playing tight coverage and our pass rushers had time to pressure Lawrence. The result was 17 incompletions and two interceptions and two quarters in which the game was in doubt before things went against us in the end. We won’t be playing a team like Clemson again and we have some good athletes in our defensive backfield. Will we be continuing with the tight coverage?”
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 said that the Clemson build-up was over and now it’s back to the routine of college football: preparing for the next game. HCDB: “You only get 12 opportunities each year and they can all beat you. You have to make sure a loss doesn’t beat you twice.”
Matt pointed out that this was only the third time in Dino’s tenure here that we didn’t cross the goal line. Dino was hoping he wouldn’t point that out but felt better when matt said it was against the 3rd, 3rd and #1 teams in the country. (That would be Clemson in 2017, Notre Dame in 2018 and this game.) Coach said that made him feel a little better.
The 1979 team that broke a 13 year bowl draught by going to the Independence Bowl was being feted in the back room of the press Room Pub. I didn’t get whether there will be a ceremony honoring them at the game or not.
On the Clemson game: It was the first sell-out in over 20 years. “We got very positive feedback from the fans as to their experience. I had to take a moment and survey the Dome before we went on. It was a dream come true.“ Think back to his introductory news conference in 2016, he called looking at this crowd “a really touching moment”. I later pointed out to the coach that panorama.com had taken a gigapixel 360 degree view of the Dome. He’s aware of it and has seen it and they will be using it in their recruiting. “Think of what we were able to do to Clemson thanks to the crowd noise. If we can do that to a team that’s been to all these important games, imagine what we could do a team that’s never experienced it before…..They were undefeated last year and we were undefeated at home. We need to be 11-1 in our last twelve games when we meet them again.”
“We had no lack of opportunity to win the game. Those guys just beat us- they are good….I wanted to see some fight in the team, regardless of the score and I saw that. We did some good things but didn’t take advent age of our opportunities, as a tema and as a family.” What happened on the goal line? “Just no push. We ran the ball twice for one yard. We had over 1800 pounds of fun up there and we need to be able to run it through a brick wall. If you can’t move the ball three yards in four plays, you don’t deserve to win…..we have the best placekicker in college football. That doesn’t make us conservative. It makes us aggressive, knowing that he has our back.”
Someone complained about our offensive not going fast enough. Matt said that we get our tempo going, “the results are usually impressive- we can make a first down, then snap it and usually get 7-8 yards”. DB: “You tickle me. I love it when the announcers and the fans can feel it. The faster we go, the calmer we play. In practice we ran 8 straight plays at tempo and one lineman was turning red. I had to call a time out and the other linemen were all mad at me for doing it. You can only go as fast as your slowest lineman. For some of them and some wide receivers it was their third or fourth game at tempo. They will be up to speed better in the 4th to the 6th game.” (There’s that phrase again- the next three games will be very interesting.)
Adam Terry told mat that Dwight Freeney put him in the NFL. He faced him every day in practice and had to get better to compete with him. Dino: Iron sharpens iron.”
On Western Michigan: “They are going to score points. We have to find a way to get things rolling….they have 8-9 guys back on defense. On offense, Jon Wassink is a veteran quarterback, Levanter Bellamy is averaging 7-8 yards per carry and D’Wayne Eskeridge is playing both ways now. ”
I called in my first question, (which he pronounced “a fantastic question”). He wants to sue the tight ends, the running back and the slot backs to give the quarterback quick targets to throw to. “We don’t want to be heavy-handed. We don’t want the other team to dictate where the ball goes. We have a lot of ways to get the ball to to somebody who gets hot. We want to spread the ball around. We want to give ourselves options to create diversity and to cover ourselves in case of an injury.”
Manny from Tampa praised the coach for bringing the team back out to listen to the alma mater. It’s bene a tradition since he came here to listen to it but after the defeat, some players didn’t go and others didn’t pay much attention to it so Dino insisted they come back out and then had them gather at the big “S” in the center of the field to “reflect on things”. Many called it “a great life lesson”. DB: Football is the greatest game in the world, despite the doubters. It makes you into a good person, a good citizen and a good father.” (Really?) After the game Dino sought out #11 on their defensive team, (Isaiah Simmons), who is “a fantastic NFL prospect” and Tanner Mayes, who scored twice against us in past games. “We made sure he didn’t score in this one”.
John in Baltimore was concerned that our wide receivers were too skinny and wondered if Cam Jordan, Russell Thompson-Bishop and Kevin Mital, (our heaviest wide-outs), could get into the game, especially in the red zone. DB: “They may look thin but they are explosive. We have a couple of little guys but they can change direction rapidly and have made some big plays in our ACC games. These next games will be an opportunity for other players to prove that they need more playing time. The guys who don’t quit and never get up are the ones who obtain their goals. We’ll have a better evaluation of the team before we go back into ACC play.” Matt added that we’ll have a couple of bye weeks coming up that will “space out” the schedule which will help with the team’s injuries. Gomez later said that he’d interviewed some of our wide receivers in the spring and “OMG. They aren’t as big as the Clemson receivers but they are bigger and stronger and leaners than our receivers have been in past years, except for the two smaller guys.”
Lee in Tully had a rambling question, asking “How are you doing so far” but commenting that the offensive line is pretty bad and Tommy DeVito was “running for his life”. Dino: “We all just need to take a deep breath and relax. We have three new offensive linemen. Guys are making mistakes at running back and among the receivers. The defense is playing better. We haven’t lost a game on special teams – we need to win them. The bye weeks are coming up.”
Kim McCloud, our cornerbacks coach, was interviewed at the end of the first hour. Matt described the cornerbacks as “a strength of the team – you can never have enough of them”. McCloud: “You always want your unit to be the best on the team. We aren’t there yet.” About our famous defensive ends: “we are working to make sure they get one on one opportunities so they can attack.” He said that trill Williams was “working on his agility” and Iffy Melifonwu was “day to day”. But “we are deep in guys who can help us win.” On Antwan Cordy: “He lost some jump balls with 6-4 guys but there were many good plays that went unnoticed. He’s a great addition because he can play multiple positons.” Scoop Bradshaw has been nursing a hand injury but “he’ll be playing a great deal down the stretch”.
Gomez asked their producer, Paulie if he’d ever heard a louder crowd at the Dome. He suggested the first SU-Duke basketball game back in 2013.
I called in my second question, about the tight coverage of the defensive backs. Dino: “Imagine you in a fast car that’s a convertible and you can feel the air whizzing past you. What am I talking about? You feel the danger. Playing really fast receivers really close is scary. We had to re-motivate and stimulate our players to get in their grill. It’s actually a lot easier to defend them when you get right in front of them. Western Michigan has a very fast receiver (D’Wayne Eskeridge), who we couldn’t catch last year so we might have to go back to playing off him."
Gomez asked what Babers remembers of what goes on “at the bottom of the pile”. He said he’d heard there were “no rules”, that “big guys don’t smell good” and that players “don’t cut their finger nails”. He heard one guy was lactose intolerant and would drink milk before games to prepare for the pile-ups. He wondered what some of the stories the coach could tell might be. Dino: “Where are you getting your information from? Big Brother is always watching until there is a pile up. Good teams know to make the pile bigger and if something is going on, they don’t peel off. He’s heard someone scream and a voice say that he wouldn’t stop unless the opponent gave the ball up. It’s like Las Vegas – what goes on there, stays there.”
They talked about football movies. “Any Given Sunday” is “just a movie, not the real thing”. Coach likes “Remember the Titans” and will “go to anything with Sylvester Stallone in it – but not during the season.” Gomez had some quotes from Rocky movies: ”Success is a culmination of failures”; “A champion is a contender who never gave up” and “If you know what you are worth, get what you are worth”. Coach liked the first two more than the third.
There was an incident in which someone sold a playoff on E-Bay. DB: “That’s why we don’t use playbooks. A coach could get a job with someone else or a player could transfer. When they do, we change our coding.
He hopes Eric Dungey catches on with the browns. “These things are usually by word of mouth. There may have bene a Giant scout who knew someone in the Browns organization and recommended him.
Gomez’s daughter just got married to the guy who cooked for Tim Tebo when he was in Syracuse. Coach met Tebo when he interviewed for a job with Florida in 2008. “He was a wide guy, a big dude. He’s very spiritual, a very pure and fine young man.” Tebo is doing things like hosting talk shows, doing football commentary and will still play baseball. His motto: “You don’t prioritize your schedule. You schedule your priorities.” Coach likes that.
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I wasn't asking to bench them-They are both good players. I was just asking about possibly incorporating some of the bigger receivers to help a little with the blocking and end-zone fades, as we don't appear to have a big, physical receiver, as we've had in previous years. Feel our WR blocking hasn't been as good this year and perhaps the size of our starting receivers is part of the reason.
