Syracuse Football: Dino Babers gets robbed of ACC Coach of the Year

Syracuse football head coach Dino Babers had a magical year in 2018. Despite that he was robbed of the ACC Coach of the Year award.

The announcement came in the early afternoon of Tuesday November 27th. Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney wins his second ACC Coach of the Year award after an undefeated 2018 campaign.

Now Dabo is a damn good coach and he deserves all the praise for what he has built the Clemson Tigers into, but honestly Clemson was expected to perform this well and they did.

While on the other hand Syracuse football head coach Dino Babers was projected to finish last in his side of the ACC. Instead he finished second behind Clemson, a team that he did beat in the loud house in 2017. A team that Dino pushed to the limit in Death Valley and was dominating the entire game before letting it slip away in the final moments. Does that not mean anything to anyone?

Here are some more things in case you forgot that Babers checked off the bucket list this season for the Orange:

• Syracuse is bowling for the first time since 2013.
• The Orange were ranked in the top-25 for the first time since 2001.
• Syracuse won nine games for the first time since 2001.

So why did Swinney win? Because of his ‘boldness’ to make a quarterback change early in the season that changed the dynamics of Clemson’s season? Trevor Lawrence was his name right? A five star quarterback who was a consensus top-three recruit in the 2018 class. Yeah real bold move.

What about the way Babers handled the quarterback controversy on his campus in 2018? Eric Dungey is one of the most prolific quarterbacks in program history and he was struggling through injuries and inconsistency.

While on the bench Babers had Tommy DeVito, the next hot thing at quarterback who had been developing on the bench. Dino magnificently worked his way through a mine field of potential issues with his quarterbacks and seemingly always played the right guy at the right time.

When Dungey was struggling in the North Carolina game, Babers pulled out Eric at just the right time so DeVito could come in and save the day and get an improbable win.

Instead of just riding the hot hand for the rest of the season, Babers stuck with his guy Dungey who delivered the best game of his career in the very next game vs NC State which happened to be a Saturday prime time game in the Carrier Dome.

Syracuse destroyed preseason expectations and delivered with an outstanding record (9-3) and lost to Pitt in overtime (they’re in the ACC Championship game), lost to Clemson after leading the whole game, and oh yeah got blown out by the No. 3 team in the country in Notre Dame. That hardly seems like something to sneeze at.

While Clemson turned an 11-1 team in 2017 (that Syracuse beat) into a 12-0 team against an ACC conference as a whole that has obviously regressed a ton in 2018.

There’s been a lot of snubs for Syracuse University this week, but Dino Babers not winning ACC Coach of the Year is the most egregious error this year by far. I demand a recount immediately!