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Head coach Dino Babers said Ohio would play its week-one matchup against the Orange “like a Bowl game.” He compared this Bobcats team to “the old Nebraska, without the option” because of their physical, experienced offensive line and their north-south, downhill running back who doesn’t hesitate. During his weekly press conference, Babers paid respect to longtime Ohio head coach Frank Solich, who coached the Bobcats since 2005 and retired in July, as well as Ohio’s new head coach Tim Albin. 

“I wish the best of luck to coach Albin, but hopefully not this week,” Babers said with a laugh.

Here are three takeaways from Babers’ press conference ahead of SU’s season opener against Ohio:

‘This team right now would get after the team from last year’

Babers said this year’s team is completely different than last year’s. Babers said that he feels very confident in the group, specifically because the Orange haven’t lost any offensive line players. Ten of the offensive starters returned and the defense had all of last season to adjust to the new 3-3-5 scheme. 

Babers used an analogy to further explain: starting any football season is like taking the training wheels off your kid’s bike. He said you know they’ll learn to ride the bike sooner or later, but you don’t want to push them because they might crash on their first ride and it’ll take far longer to recover. 

“You have a lot of confidence, you have a lot of faith, they’ve had the training wheels on (for) a long time,” Babers said. “They should stay on, some don’t, (but) that doesn’t mean they’re not going to be successful later … You kind of just wait and see and if they stay up.”

Babers said that new offensive line coach, Mike Schmidt, who arrived at SU from San Diego State during the offseason, brings a “certain swagger” to the room. He was part of a very competitive pool of applicants, according to Babers, and has made the positional group “tougher” than they were before. 

“We’ve had to adjust a little bit for (him), but I think that’s going to pay off in the long run, and that’s why we went out there to get him,” Babers said of Schmidt.

Babers said that though he doesn’t like comparing this year’s team to last year’s — a team that went 1-10 in the worst outing for SU since 2005 — but that he would prefer this year’s team over last. 

Improvements on the offensive line

Babers said he feels far more comfortable with the situation on the offensive line this year. He declined to provide specifics about the three offensive lineman that have missed time during training camp — Dakota Davis, Chris Bleich and Matthew Bergeron.

SU’s offensive line struggled last year after being plagued with injuries, ranking 113th out of 127 teams nationally, according to Pro Football Focus. Babers said it’s extremely positive that the Orange haven’t had a season ending injury within that unit. 

Davis, in particular, has yet to participate in practice fully during training camp, but Babers cited his 2020 campaign where he overcame injury and appeared in the last five games of the season, and Babers didn’t seem concerned about Davis’ ability to get into shape. The redshirt junior currently sits behind Darius Tisdale on the depth chart. 

Tommy DeVito’s improvements

DeVito sits atop the Orange’s week-one depth chart, though Babers has already stated that he’ll be playing the redshirt junior as well as Mississippi State transfer Garrett Shrader. 

Babers said that offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Sterlin Gilbert has “done some really good things” with DeVito, and he said that the quarterback has improved his skill. 

“We hope that those things that we see in practice transfer to the game when we get a new and improved and better version of someone who we think is really good,” Babers said.

He said that DeVito has specifically improved his pocket presence — he’s more aware of where defenders are so that he can get rid of the ball and protect himself when a situation goes wrong. 

Published on August 30, 2021 at 7:59 pm

Contact Roshan: rferna04@syr.edu | @Roshan_f16