Syracuse Football: Orange needs ‘to start recruiting like an ACC school’

A national writer says that Syracuse football head coach Dino Babers isn’t likely to get let go anytime soon.

Syracuse football, hurt by a slew of injuries across the roster, looked dreadful this past Saturday afternoon on the Hill, as the Orange allowed more than 500 yards of offense to Liberty and fell to the Flames, 38-21.

That result left the ‘Cuse at 1-4, gave Liberty its first win over an Atlantic Coast Conference squad, and has a contingent of Syracuse football fans calling for head coach Dino Babers to get shown the door.

"Not so fast, my friends. As Pete Thamel writes in a column for Yahoo Sports, “Don’t expect Babers’ job to be in jeopardy. He has four full years remaining on his contract this year, and the most conservative estimates of his buyout are that he’d be owed at least $17 million if he was fired after this season. That number would scare a well-heeled SEC athletic department, and Syracuse is decidedly not one of those.”"

I totally understand why some Orange fans think that Babers has to move on from the ‘Cuse program. He’s in his fifth year at the helm in Central New York, and Syracuse football is probably going to produce its fourth stanza below .500 in 2020.

The 2018 performance, when the Orange went 10-3, captured a bowl-game conquest and finished ranked No. 15 in the major polls, seems like an anomaly.

Even with all of its unfortunate injuries, a blow-out setback to non-conference foe Liberty is a new low for this ‘Cuse crew, and Syracuse football will have its hands completely full when it travels to No. 1 Clemson this coming Saturday for a noon ACC clash.

Syracuse football needs to significantly up its recruiting level, according to one national journalist.

Thamel, in an honest assessment of the state of the Orange program, had some pretty choice words about the ‘Cuse. Thamel writes, “One of the issues at Syracuse is that athletic director John Wildhack has no experience overseeing a major college football program, so there’s no leadership with an idea about structure, staffing and how to out-maneuver conference peers in more ideal recruiting bases.”

"Thamel goes on to say that the Orange’s “recruiting staff is one of the least sophisticated in the ACC,” and a critical example of this is “the lack of talent in Syracuse’s quarterback room, as Babers has yet to recruit and develop a proven ACC-level starter, and the lack of depth in that room has always been glaringly thin.”"

In summation, Thamel says, “Syracuse and Babers are contractually in lockstep for a while. To compete in the ACC, they need to start recruiting like an ACC school.”

Sometimes the truth isn’t easy to hear, and I bleed Orange forever, but what Thamel has opined about the ‘Cuse is absolutely spot on.