Syracuse football: Worst head coach hires in program history

The Syracuse Orange are nearing the end of Year 8 of the Dino Babers era and the way the season is going, it may just be the end of the era altogether. Syracuse is 5-5 ahead of a matchup with Georgia Tech in Week 12 of the 2023 season and it’s been five years since Babers led Syracuse to a 10-3 season in 2018.

For a basketball school without much history on the football field, the Orange have had a lot of stability in their football program. Low expectations mean that the administrators have a lot of patience with head coaches as they have had with Babers.

Still, there is a fairly definitive list of the worst head coaches in the history of Syracuse football and it starts with Babers at No. 4.

Dino Babers should get “went 10-3 in 2018” tattooed somewhere prominent because it’s the only reason to consider keeping him after this year. That season, the Orange finished second in the ACC Atlantic to Clemson and only lost to Clemson, Pitt, and Notre Dame. Outside of that season, his tenure has largely been a failure.

The second-best season of the Babers era was 2022 when he led Syracuse to a 7-6 record and a Pinstripe Bowl loss. It was the second time Babers led the team to a bowl game and his only other winning season.

His cumulative record from his first year in 2016 through Week 11 of 2023 is 41-54 and if you take out the 10-3 year he is 31-51, 20 games under .500. That’s bad, even for a basketball school.