Syracuse Football: Dino Babers on kicking extra point, ‘points are hard to come by’
In a tight knit Syracuse football game in the bayou, Dino Babers struggles with game management. ITLH looks into his comments after the game.
The morning after, it’s still a tough pill to swallow for the Syracuse football team following their 35 to 26 loss to the LSU Tigers.
This game came down to a handful of plays that could’ve went either way and they went the other way. Although that’s no excuse for some key mistakes that cost the Orange dearly.
Speaking of, lets dive deeper into the strategy by head coach Dino Babers in kicking the extra point as opposed to making it a one score game.
Babers spoke after the game during the post game press conference on deciding to kick the extra point as opposed to going for two:
"“Points are so hard to come by. You would think that one point, that oh you have to get that, no you don’t. You need to be patient. When the fourth quarter starts, you’ll know exactly how many points you need. As it turned out, a field goal would’ve won the game but we couldn’t hold them on the last possession. If we would’ve went for two instead of kicking the extra point it would’ve been a four point game if it missed.We were in the position we needed to be in. We made it a game in the fourth quarter. Going into this game we wanted an opportunity to have a chance to win with 5-6 minutes left in the game. We wanted them to feel us, to see that we were going to be right there punch for punch with them and have an opportunity to win at the end. Unfortunately we didn’t get it done.”"
To view the full presser, you can do so below:
Babers started to get emotional near the end of his soundbite. Babers’ strategy makes sense on the surface, if it’s a game with five minutes left then it all works out.
But guess what? He didn’t know that it was going to be, you can’t play with a deck of cards that you don’t know what’s coming. You’ve got to expect the worst and hope for the best. It was the end of the third quarter when Eric Dungey scrambled to the right side and snuck into the pylon.
Babers doesn’t have a crystal ball, he had an opportunity to right then and there make it a one score game. He decided to kick the extra point because “points are hard to come by” and when it gets to the fourth quarter you know how many points you’ve got to score?
Bull crap!
Hindsight is 20-20 after the fact saying oh yes of course it worked out exactly like we planned, that’s a convenient excuse. There was only seven seconds left in the third quarter so it was about to be the fourth quarter.
That was a boneheaded decision and a short sighted one at that. So lets play this game, fast-forward to the 5:40 mark in the fourth quarter and boom Dungey throws a beautiful ball to the right half of the endzone to Steve Ishmael. Wait a second, SU isn’t trying to tie the game in the fourth quarter, instead SU is kicking another extra point to make it a two point game?
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So now SU has to rely on its’ defense, which it has been relying on all day, for one more stop. Of course they don’t get it and that’s the end of the fairy tale win for the Orange. But if Babers would’ve been thinking 10 steps ahead and utilizing basic football mathematics he could’ve put the Cuse in a position to tie the game instead of just coming within two points at the end. Although hindsight is 20-20 right?