Babers encouraged by Orange’s attitude
After his team suffered its first loss of the season, a tough 27-23 defeat at No. 4 Clemson on Saturday, Syracuse coach Dino Babers was interested to see how the Orange would handle the setback.
He said he took in the scene Sunday at practice and was pleased.
“They picked me up yesterday with their attitude,” Babers said at his press conference on Monday. “They just seem like they’re mature.”
The Orange (4-1 overall, 1-1 ACC) will be tested with another ACC road game Saturday against Pittsburgh.
Babers said his team can learn a lot from the team they just lost to, Clemson, because of how the Tigers rebounded after their upset loss at Syracuse last season.
Clemson won its last six regular-season games by an average of 25.8 points after the 27-24 upset loss at the Carrier Dome last season.
“The big thing that Clemson did last year is they didn’t let Syracuse beat them twice,” Babers said.
“Now we’ve got to take a page from that book. They beat us once; they’re a good football team. But we can’t make that football team good enough to beat us twice. We need to lock in, focus and put all of our energy and all of our attention into the Pitt Panthers.”
Syracuse’s determined attitude after the loss to Clemson is a good indicator that the Orange is on the right path psychologically in Babers’ third year as coach of the program.
“Now, I believe this team has it, OK?” Babers said. “I believe they have it. I think they are. … I don’t want to say it yet, because I don’t want to jinx it, OK? … We have to prove it. And this is an opportunity right now to prove it.”
One area in which Babers wants to see improvement is run defense. Clemson’s Travis Etienne rushed for a career-high 203 yards with three touchdowns last week against the Orange.
“It wasn’t like they were scheming us,” Babers said.
“We had a guy, if you look at the tape, we had a guy who could make the tackle. If they make the tackle, we’re going to have an opportunity. And it happened continuously. That’s the part that kind of bugs me. We just needed one more play.”