The Syracuse football team was started in 1890 and over the past 134 years, the program has had 33 different head coaches.
As Fran Brown looks to take the reigns of the Syracuse football program, let’s take a look back at some of the poorest performances by head coaches of the Orange. Some of the all-time greats for Syracuse include Paul Pasqualoni and Doug Marrone who led the team to conference titles.
Ignoring Jordan C. Wells’ infamous winless season from 1892, here are the five worst head coaching hires that the Orange has ever seen:
During his tenure, Dino Babers, the most recent Syracuse head coach, led the team to a pretty embarrassing 36-49 overall record.
However, many players and coaches credited him with their bowl game-clinching victory at the end of the regular season in 2023. Beloved by his players, Babers was a likable guy on and off the field.
Babers also led the team to a postseason victory in the Camping World Bowl over West Virginia in 2018.
Being likable clearly isn’t a direct translation to being successful though. With Babers’ disappointing overall performance, the Syracuse athletic department fired him before his eighth season with the program was even finished.