UNACCEPTABLE!

[chakka3421]

The performance on Saturday was simply UNACCEPTABLE! I had to stay off of the forum for the most part this weekend because I'm so angry with Babers and the coaching staff. I've never seen in a long time a team so undisciplined. Most important point - when you get back so many experienced starters from the pervious year I can accept a loss when the talent is better but NOT a mistake laden performance from an experienced group getting beat by a much lessor team at HOME! And I don't want to ever see another thread this year about attendance because I will point to this game as END of STORY!

From day one always wanted an "experienced head coach" so that we wouldn't go through what I call "coaching growing pains" where you can expect this to happen in the early coaching years of a former DC/OC . This is solely on Babers and his coaching staff. Another important point - we pay him $2.5 MILLION to get the team ready to play. You can talk excuses all you want about player drops, no run game, weak OL, defense gassed, bad special teams BUT I never expected this kind of UNDISCIPLINED performance out of a Babers team. We literally gave them the game through mistake laden undisciplined play whereas we should have beaten this team by at least 20 points more.

DISGUSTING! No excuse! If I ever went to work in that way I'd be disciplined, warned and out the door with the EXCUSE Babers gave at the press conference - simply DISAPPOINTED. I could have accepted a loss if coaches had a great game plan and the kids were ready to play and played their hearts out but NOT this again. No one can justify in my mind what happened. I only have one word to sum up Saturday - UNACCEPTABLE.

 

[orangenirvana]

Say what you want about Babers' performance on Saturday but the guy owned it after the game. Said the loss was all on him. That's all you can really ask for.

 

[Killdozer]

The performance on Saturday was simply UNACCEPTABLE! I had to stay off of the forum for the most part this weekend because I'm so angry with Babers and the coaching staff. I've never seen in a long time a team so undisciplined. Most important point - when you get back so many starters from the pervious year I can accept a loss when the talent is better but NOT a mistake laden performance from an experienced group getting beat at home. And I don't want to ever see another thread this year about attendance because I will point to this game as END of STORY!

From day one always wanted an "experienced coach" so that we wouldn't go through what I call "coaching growing pains" where you can expect this to happen in the early coaching years. This is solely on Babers and his coaching staff. Another important point - we pay him $2.5 MILLION to get the team ready to play. You can talk excuses all you want about player drops, no run game, weak OL, defense gassed, bad special teams BUT I never expected this kind of UNDISCIPLINED performance out of a Babers team. We literally gave them the game through mistake laden undisciplined play whereas we should have beaten this team by at least 20 points more.

DISGUSTING! No excuse! If I ever went to work in that way I'd be disciplined, warned and out the door with the EXCUSE Babers gave at the press conference - simply DISAPPOINTED. I could have accepted a loss if coaches had a great game plan and the kids were ready to play and played their hearts out but NOT this again. No one can justify in my mind what happened. I only have one word to sum up Saturday - UNACCEPTABLE.

Yep....SU fans always post excuses on why they lost but many will not put any blame on Babers and company because he is the next great one. I'm with you on some of the blame goes on the staff with the inept play calling. It seems like there are only a few plays with many different looks. I, like so many SU fans, just want a good team that you know is going to win games that they should and be competitive in all others. Is that too much to ask for after the 15+ years us fans have endured?

 

[OrangeinBoston]

The performance on Saturday was simply UNACCEPTABLE! I had to stay off of the forum for the most part this weekend because I'm so angry with Babers and the coaching staff. I've never seen in a long time a team so undisciplined. Most important point - when you get back so many starters from the pervious year I can accept a loss when the talent is better but NOT a mistake laden performance from an experienced group getting beat at home. And I don't want to ever see another thread this year about attendance because I will point to this game as END of STORY!

From day one always wanted an "experienced coach" so that we wouldn't go through what I call "coaching growing pains" where you can expect this to happen in the early coaching years. This is solely on Babers and his coaching staff. Another important point - we pay him $2.5 MILLION to get the team ready to play. You can talk excuses all you want about player drops, no run game, weak OL, defense gassed, bad special teams BUT I never expected this kind of UNDISCIPLINED performance out of a Babers team. We literally gave them the game through mistake laden undisciplined play whereas we should have beaten this team by at least 20 points more.

DISGUSTING! No excuse! If I ever went to work in that way I'd be disciplined, warned and out the door with the EXCUSE Babers gave at the press conference - simply DISAPPOINTED. I could have accepted a loss if coaches had a great game plan and the kids were ready to play and played their hearts out but NOT this again. No one can justify in my mind what happened. I only have one word to sum up Saturday - UNACCEPTABLE.

As disturbing as anything was the look on Dungey's face during the first quarter when they managed negative yards on offense. He looked like he was in some parallel football universe where the other team was doing things he had never seen before, had never practiced against.

Kudos to Shaefer, but what's up with that?

 

[Killdozer]

Say what you want about Babers' performance on Saturday but the guy owned it after the game. Said the loss was all on him. That's all you can really ask for.

"Said the loss was all on him." All coaches say that after losing a game they shouldn't. It doesn't mean anything!

 

[chakka3421]

Say what you want about Babers' performance on Saturday but the guy owned it after the game. Said the loss was all on him. That's all you can really ask for.

That is exactly my point! It is NOT an acceptable level of preparation and performance expectation from an experienced HC with experienced players coming back for him to say that. We pay him $2.5 MILLION for him to get his players ready to play so this would NOT happen again. That's exactly is my point - his EXCUSE was UNACCEPTABLE!

 

[omg_cuse_rules]

The performance on Saturday was simply UNACCEPTABLE! I had to stay off of the forum for the most part this weekend because I'm so angry with Babers and the coaching staff. I've never seen in a long time a team so undisciplined. Most important point - when you get back so many experienced starters from the pervious year I can accept a loss when the talent is better but NOT a mistake laden performance from an experienced group getting beat at home. And I don't want to ever see another thread this year about attendance because I will point to this game as END of STORY!

From day one always wanted an "experienced coach" so that we wouldn't go through what I call "coaching growing pains" where you can expect this to happen in the early coaching years. This is solely on Babers and his coaching staff. Another important point - we pay him $2.5 MILLION to get the team ready to play. You can talk excuses all you want about player drops, no run game, weak OL, defense gassed, bad special teams BUT I never expected this kind of UNDISCIPLINED performance out of a Babers team. We literally gave them the game through mistake laden undisciplined play whereas we should have beaten this team by at least 20 points more.

DISGUSTING! No excuse! If I ever went to work in that way I'd be disciplined, warned and out the door with the EXCUSE Babers gave at the press conference - simply DISAPPOINTED. I could have accepted a loss if coaches had a great game plan and the kids were ready to play and played their hearts out but NOT this again. No one can justify in my mind what happened. I only have one word to sum up Saturday - UNACCEPTABLE.

Oh look another Shafer apologist

 

[orangenirvana]

As disturbing as anything was the look on Dungey's face during the first quarter when they managed negative yards on offense. He looked like he was in some parallel football universe where the other team was doing things he had never seen before, had never practiced against.

Kudos to Shaefer, but what's up with that?

I don't think he was confused with what Middle Tennessee was doing schematically. I think the players underestimated MT and looked past them. Which is awful to think because we don't win enough for that but kids are kids, it happens. Doesn't excuse the loss by any means but I really doubt the issue was the MT coaches outsmarting Babers and Co.

 

[Killdozer]

Oh look another Shafer apologist

What are you talking about dude....he never even mentioned Shafer in his post.

 

[TheCusian]

Yikes.

 

[Finwad32]

MT was not better physically or athletically. Take it fwiw.

 

[TheCusian]

MT was not better physically or athletically. Take it fwiw.

I think MTSU handled the mental part better for sure- and our staff had too much faith in the spread to correctly game plan for the blitzes SS would bring.

 

[IthacaBarrel]

The loss was the worst in quite some time, it's sports and it happens. The fact is Dino isn't the genius that many thought he was after we beat Va Tech last year and he certainly isn't a bum either. He's a football coach who will win some good games and lose some bad ones as well. What we pay him is the going rate for a coach of his caliber and has nothing to do with it. I paid $38 for a steak on Friday that was terrible. Is what it is.

We aren't as bad as we think but if we beat one of the 5 teams that we all think are pretty much baked in losses this year, we aren't as good that day as many think we are either. When you have a razor thin margin like we do with the schedule that we have, games like this are actually bigger than say LSU. We aren't winning that game 99 out of 100 times.

I am most disappointed in the lack of creativity and progress of the offense. Year 2, I would think we should be able to move ball better and put out a much more diverse scheme that is capable of scoring 35-50 on MTSU pretty easily even with mistakes. I liked Dino's scheme because you don't have to be perfect every possession to put up good numbers but it's almost like he is retreating into a hole and simplifying things to a point where are so predictable

 

[OrangeFoo]

MT was not better physically or athletically. Take it fwiw.

Huh?

Their receivers and RBs are better than ours... maybe not in the gym but definitely on the field
Their Oline played better than ours against a superior D to the one we faced
Their QB is at least as good as out... at least on that day

I think folks need to realize that there probably is a reason that Babers has had to go to such a vanilla offense... his oline is extremely young and not strong enough to get any push on run plays, his receivers can't get separation and apparently can't catch, his RBs have ZERO vision so even if there is a hole they miss it and his QB either passes it to the sideline hitch/comeback or takes off with the ball.

If you're a coach what the heck are you supposed to do? Babers tried running out the option but it's clear that Dungey has no feel for it. Babers tried turning Dungey into a RB which sorta worked but is not sustainable throughout the year. Babers called plays where the inside was WIDE open but his QB won't deliver the ball there.

The one area I'll blame Babers for is the lack of any creativity in the run game... I think the passing game actually has some creativity but the players on the field are hindering it.

I guess we can blame Babers for not recruiting freshmen receivers and olinemen who can play on day 1 but lets be honest 90% of the programs out there don't get freshmen who can play one the line on day 1... receivers yes, so hopefully we'll see some of those guys.

Personally I think this loss is more on the players unforced errors and lack of talent than anything else. You can blame FHCSS for that one because we should have a strong class of Juniors and Seniors carrying this team on the oline but his recruiting there was terrible. We should also have better receivers there but again his recruiting there proved to be terrible. I'll give Babers blame for RB as again he ran a kid of the team who seemed like he had more talent than the current guys.

 

[Orijinal]

Chakka, I'm pretty much with you. If I had said it like this I would have been blasted.

The only place I would give Babers the benefit of the doubt would be the fact that he played against a Shafer scheme defense, which has given plenty of teams across the country fits...especially during the days when Shafer was coaching only as defensive coordinator.

The defensive line play is weak, with a capital w.e.a.k. Not getting to the QB at all on pass plays. Think the run game is a little better and I think it will improve over the course of the season with improved blocking and Elmore in the lineup.

Syracuse was in the driver's seat in this game until Riley misses fielding the punt, and then defense has nothing left by 4th quarter. Bad mix

 

[Finwad32]

Huh?

Their receivers and RBs are better than ours... maybe not in the gym but definitely on the field
Their Oline played better than ours against a superior D to the one we faced
Their QB is at least as good as out... at least on that day

I think folks need to realize that there probably is a reason that Babers has had to go to such a vanilla offense... his oline is extremely young and not strong enough to get any push on run plays, his receivers can't get separation and apparently can't catch, his RBs have ZERO vision so even if there is a hole they miss it and his QB either passes it to the sideline hitch/comeback or takes off with the ball.

If you're a coach what the heck are you supposed to do? Babers tried running out the option but it's clear that Dungey has no feel for it. Babers tried turning Dungey into a RB which sorta worked but is not sustainable throughout the year. Babers called plays where the inside was WIDE open but his QB won't deliver the ball there.

The one area I'll blame Babers for is the lack of any creativity in the run game... I think the passing game actually has some creativity but the players on the field are hindering it.

I guess we can blame Babers for not recruiting freshmen receivers and olinemen who can play on day 1 but lets be honest 90% of the programs out there don't get freshmen who can play one the line on day 1... receivers yes, so hopefully we'll see some of those guys.

Personally I think this loss is more on the players unforced errors and lack of talent than anything else. You can blame FHCSS for that one because we should have a strong class of Juniors and Seniors carrying this team on the oline but his recruiting there was terrible. We should also have better receivers there but again his recruiting there proved to be terrible. I'll give Babers blame for RB as again he ran a kid of the team who seemed like he had more talent than the current guys.

Playing better and being physically superior are two completely different things. Syracuse was superior physically. They got rocked.

You're supposed to coach up your guys. Oh please with the, he designed it we just didn't execute it. We lost to an inferior opponent, it's as simple as that.

Their guys were more ready than our guys.

 

[OrangeFoo]

Playing better and being physically superior are two completely different things. Syracuse was superior physically. They got rocked.

You're supposed to coach up your guys. Oh please with the, he designed it we just didn't execute it. We lost to an inferior opponent, it's as simple as that.

Their guys were more ready than our guys.

We'll have to agree to disagree... 90% of MTSU's pressure came from their LE who just happened to be a guy who transferred from Missouri after doing pretty well there because of off the field issues. He was better than any dude on our oline and totally disrupted everything, That's talent not preparedness.

In spite of everything that happened we would have won that game if Custis could catch, Erv didn't drop an easy catch on the sideline, Ishmael could get any separation at all, Dungey threw to the middle of the field which was wide open... not sure how that is preparation vs execution.

 

[orangecuse]

"Said the loss was all on him." All coaches say that after losing a game they shouldn't. It doesn't mean anything!

When you have a track record of success, it carries more weight. I wouldn't necessarily say that Dino has a significant track record since his two stints at prior schools were too short. After that debacle in the Dome last year when St. Johns totally embarrassed SU (and JB), JB coming out and saying the loss was on him carried much more weight than anything Dino says at this stage.

 

[Finwad32]

We'll have to agree to disagree... 90% of MTSU's pressure came from their LE who just happened to be a guy who transferred from Missouri after doing pretty well there because of off the field issues. He was better than any dude on our oline and totally disrupted everything, That's talent not preparedness.

In spite of everything that happened we would have won that game if Custis could catch, Erv didn't drop an easy catch on the sideline, Ishmael could get any separation at all, Dungey threw to the middle of the field which was wide open... not sure how that is preparation vs execution.

Would've, could've, should've but didn't.

One DE shouldn't equalize the 2016 3rd place C-USA East Finisher (just behind Old Dominion by 2 games).

I will disagree, and will never agree that Syracuse should've dropped one to MTSU... I can theorize all day about 14 things that should've altered the game, but, it doesn't matter because that's not what happened.

Hell, I can make an argument for one play that would've completely changed the game, but, it doesn't matter.

MTSU's starting FS looked like a Class C HS QB.

 

[Alsacs]

Oh look another Shafer apologist

Chakka isn't an Shafer apologist.

He is frustrated.
I am frustrated we lost but I am not as upset because this year's schedule had little wiggle room for 6 wins.
We aren't getting 6 now.

I am more questioning whether Dungey will improve as a QB or next year we give the keys to DeVito.

 

[Ozcuse]

Not sure if any of our coaches/players were already looking ahead to LSU or ACC opponents but I hope this is a rude awakening that we're not good enough to take anyone lightly.

The fact that we had -26 yards of offense in the 1st Quarter shows me that Shafer had his defense amped up for this game while we looked like we never saw overload blitzes before. What did the scout team defense do this past week? If it wasn't for 3 early MTSU turnovers this game could have gotten out of hand pretty quick.

If we come out guns blazing against CMU I can forgive this game since I thought we would be a borderline bowl team anyways but if I see more of the same problems on offense and defense I will be back here next Monday with a less "measured" statement.

 

[OrangeFoo]

Would've, could've, should've but didn't.

One DE shouldn't equalize the 2016 3rd place C-USA East Finisher (just behind Old Dominion by 2 games).

I will disagree, and will never agree that Syracuse should've dropped one to MTSU... I can theorize all day about 14 things that should've altered the game, but, it doesn't matter because that's not what happened.

Hell, I can make an argument for one play that would've completely changed the game, but, it doesn't matter.

MTSU's starting FS looked like a Class C HS QB.

We don't disagree... Syracuse should never have dropped one to MTSU... I agree with that. But my eyes tell me that our oline was dominated by their dline, our receivers couldn't catch and couldn't get separation from their DBs, our RBs have no clue how to play RB, our QB doesn't see open guys if they are in between the hashes. You can blame HCDB for putting the players he put on the field out there but is that really is his fault entirely when he's had one full recruiting cycle? One change I would make is to force Dungey to make his first read be the middle of the field and not the sideline but other than that I'm not sure what Babers can do with the current players he has at his disposal. Receivers gotta catch, Oline has to create holes, RBs have to run to holes, etc...

 

[RandomGuy]

For me, this ones on babers... Letting 2 guys tee off of your QB, without enough bodies to block them... Sorry. 5 future hall of fame linemen couldn't have stopped that.

2/3 of the time dungey ran, it looked like playground football - without a plan.

The line did actually make some holes, but the handoff would be to a rb who was 33 feet from the line of scrimmage.

Other times, the te would be lined up directly on the de, and on the run play would go out for a pass , and give him a direct line to the rb in the backfield.

Sorry. That kind of "trickery" just isn't that tricky. I think it can be fixed, but there needs to be blitz help. As far as the run, you need to fully commit to it, when you're going to, instead of just crossing your fingers.

That's what I took from this game. The line is young, but they were also put into very poor situations, by the call, or dungey's choice.

 

[cuse10]

The loss was the worst in quite some time, it's sports and it happens. The fact is Dino isn't the genius that many thought he was after we beat Va Tech last year and he certainly isn't a bum either. He's a football coach who will win some good games and lose some bad ones as well. What we pay him is the going rate for a coach of his caliber and has nothing to do with it. I paid $38 for a steak on Friday that was terrible. Is what it is.

We aren't as bad as we think but if we beat one of the 5 teams that we all think are pretty much baked in losses this year, we aren't as good that day as many think we are either. When you have a razor thin margin like we do with the schedule that we have, games like this are actually bigger than say LSU. We aren't winning that game 99 out of 100 times.

I am most disappointed in the lack of creativity and progress of the offense. Year 2, I would think we should be able to move ball better and put out a much more diverse scheme that is capable of scoring 35-50 on MTSU pretty easily even with mistakes. I liked Dino's scheme because you don't have to be perfect every possession to put up good numbers but it's almost like he is retreating into a hole and simplifying things to a point where are so predictable

You don't have a receiver that can stretch the field like AET and the offensive line is the worst that I've seen in years. Combine those two and you end up with an offense that can't do much. Ishmael has been hyped since Day 1 and hasn't put any of his gifts to use on the field that provide tangible results. I think guys like Neal should be in the slot to provide an additional option to throw to. I'm not sold on Custis at all.

 

[hungrychuck]

The performance on Saturday was simply UNACCEPTABLE! I had to stay off of the forum for the most part this weekend because I'm so angry with Babers and the coaching staff. I've never seen in a long time a team so undisciplined. Most important point - when you get back so many experienced starters from the pervious year I can accept a loss when the talent is better but NOT a mistake laden performance from an experienced group getting beat at home. And I don't want to ever see another thread this year about attendance because I will point to this game as END of STORY!

From day one always wanted an "experienced coach" so that we wouldn't go through what I call "coaching growing pains" where you can expect this to happen in the early coaching years. This is solely on Babers and his coaching staff. Another important point - we pay him $2.5 MILLION to get the team ready to play. You can talk excuses all you want about player drops, no run game, weak OL, defense gassed, bad special teams BUT I never expected this kind of UNDISCIPLINED performance out of a Babers team. We literally gave them the game through mistake laden undisciplined play whereas we should have beaten this team by at least 20 points more.

DISGUSTING! No excuse! If I ever went to work in that way I'd be disciplined, warned and out the door with the EXCUSE Babers gave at the press conference - simply DISAPPOINTED. I could have accepted a loss if coaches had a great game plan and the kids were ready to play and played their hearts out but NOT this again. No one can justify in my mind what happened. I only have one word to sum up Saturday - UNACCEPTABLE.

I'm glad you had a chance to cool off before you posted!