Syracuse has successfully managed to keep coronavirus infection rates low among its athletes, but nationwide rates and players’ health concerns leave the fall seasons in serious doubt.

Two of the Power 5 conferences and many smaller leagues have already canceled their fall seasons. But the Atlantic Coast Conference, as well as Syracuse’s training camp practices that started Aug. 6, are continuing as scheduled.

Here are three storylines that emerged during this most unusual offseason and training camp for SU football:

The status of the 2020 football season

As of Thursday afternoon’s meeting with ACC Presidents, college football is continuing this fall as planned for the conference’s 15 members.

The Big 10 and Pac-12 announced Tuesday that both leagues were postponing their fall seasons and hoping to play in the spring. Two days later, the NCAA announced that all fall sports championships would be canceled. The decision does not affect the Power 5 conferences or the College Football Playoff should the SEC, Big 12 and ACC play their seasons.

The ACC has pivoted from its traditional schedule of eight conference and four nonconference games, instead scheduling nearly all conference games, with the exception of one nonconference game.

The conference also pushed the season’s start back a week. Instead of playing at Boston College on Sept. 4 to begin the year, the Orange will travel to North Carolina on Sept. 12.

“I’m confident that we’ll start,” defensive back Andre Cisco said. “I’m confident that we’ll get some games in. Anything can happen from there. We have a strong enough protocol to at least start.”

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said there won’t be fans at New York sporting events this fall, and while SU has asked for clarification on that ruling, it appears that the Carrier Dome will be empty if the Orange open their home slate with Georgia Tech on Sept. 26.

While both head coach Dino Babers and Director of Athletics John Wildhack were optimistic as recently as June about having both a season and fans in the Dome, Babers and the players have expressed cautious optimism of late.

“Right now, we’re just taking it day by day,” senior Chris Elmore said. “We’re seeing everything that everyone else is seeing with a lot of different conferences opting out of the season and things like that. Until they cut us off, treat everything like it’s normal. Treat everything like we’re going to play that game.”

Only one player, redshirt freshman defensive lineman Cooper Dawson, has opted out of the 2020 season. Babers said that multiple other players are still considering whether to opt-out as well.

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How Syracuse managed to return to football safely

Syracuse athletes and athletic staff took about 400 COVID-19 tests between Aug. 2 and Aug. 11, all of which came back negative. Football players first returned to campus in the first week of June for summer workouts, although COVID-19 precautions made the summer much different than those before.

The Orange were placed into pods of four people once players returned to campus and tested negative for the virus. Players have been tested every other week since, and the pods have slowly expanded in size until reaching entire offensive and defensive units.

Babers has celebrated the Orange’s success on testing, yet his players continue to sit out practice. Multiple high-profile players at Syracuse are still considering opting-out due to concerns surrounding the virus’ long term health effects, The Athletic reported Friday.

“I know I’m not allowed to tell you what the number is, but if they were basing a National Championship, Final Four off of COVID testing and who had the lowest number, I really believe we’d be in the Final Four,” Babers said.

Yet after a supposedly successful summer workout program, SU players presented a list of concerns to Babers and chose to sit out the first two days of training camp practice because they wanted to be tested more frequently and to see improved testing standards across the conference. Although Syracuse returned to the field, they later sat out a third day on Wednesday.

Looking at the potential 2020 season

If there is a 2020 football season this fall, Syracuse is dealing with plenty of turnover on both sides of the ball. The Orange are replacing both of their coordinators, transitioning into a new base defensive scheme and attempting to replace two of the program’s best defensive players from the last few seasons.

After Babers fired defensive coordinator Brian Ward following a 58-27 loss to Boston College last season, he turned to former Arizona State defensive coordinator Tony White in February to take over and install a new 3-3-5 defense.

In a typical year, the Orange would’ve used a full summer and normal training camp to install White’s defense. But this year, Babers is asking for extra time for him and his players to figure things out early in the season.

“My expectations is this right here: Something’s going to happen on Sept. 12,” Babers said. “It could be really really good, it could be really, really bad on one or both sides of offense and defense. What I expect after the 12th is I expect them to get better.”

Four of five offensive linemen that started the final three games of the season are returning. Despite improved play from that position group in those final three weeks, the Orange allowed more sacks per game (4.17) than all but two teams in FBS football in2019. Syracuse will be replacing No. 1 wide receiver Trishton Jackson and leading running back Moe Neal.

New offensive coordinator Sterlin Gilbert is reuniting with Babers after he coached under him at Eastern Illinois and Bowling Green. But the shortened offseason could impact new schemes and plays the Orange want to insert into an offense that failed to establish the run game and protect the quarterback in 2019.

Although it may improve the chances of having a season, the Orange’s new schedule will prove more of a challenge than the previous one planned. Instead of eight ACC games and four nonconference games against Rutgers, Liberty, Colgate and Western Michigan, SU will play 10 ACC games and one nonconference. The Orange essentially replaced WMU, Colgate and Rutgers with road trips to Notre Dame and North Carolina, two teams who should be ranked in the AP Top 25.

“When you really start playing football in September, you may start somebody Sept. 12 who might not be the starter Oct. 10,” Babers said.“But if everybody continues to get better and we’re still evaluating, somewhere after that four through six thing, we should start to settle in.”

Published on August 16, 2020 at 9:06 pm

Contact Anthony: amdabbun@syr.edu | @AnthonyDabbundo