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Head coach Dino Babers says he has a designated staff member whose full-time game day job is to advise him on clock management and game theory.

Babers says he values analytics, too. He knows he has “to look at the numbers” but also leaves space to make gut decisions, shaped by 35 years of coaching. “If not, you’re just a clone,” he said.

But he also declined to specify how often he sides with analytics, compared to his gut. He acknowledged that Falk College’s sport analytics program is among the country’s best but said SU has its own analytics staffers and doesn’t work directly with Falk.

Babers didn’t directly answer a question about whether kicking a field goal at the end of the Clemson game instead of going for the conversion was an example of siding with his gut over the numbers. And when asked specifically whether analytics drove the majority of his decisions, he said “I cannot tell you.”

Babers might’ve responded this way because he didn’t want to give opponents insight into his process. And he does deserve credit for the improvement that Syracuse has made from last year to this season.

But he — and the staff member who advises him in-game, who Babers declined to name — has been subject to a plethora of deserved scrutiny regarding clock management, game theory decision-making and failure to properly utilize analytics during recent weeks. Babers’ numerous questionable decisions have accumulated over the past few weeks, a span when SU lost three consecutive games by just three points.

There were the conservative calls against both Wake Forest and Clemson where Babers sent kicker Andre Szmyt onto the field instead of the offense on fourth-and-short. There was the delay of game penalty called on Syracuse against Wake Forest when Babers wanted to go for a two-point conversion and the win, but he’d burned all his timeouts. Celebrations ran long, the team didn’t know beforehand about the plan to go for two, and SU was forced to kick the extra point instead.

There was the decision to accept a holding call and replay third down against the Demon Deacons, making it third-and-23 instead of fourth-and-13, which eventually led to a Wake Forest touchdown. There was the decision to largely abandon the read option — the identity SU’s offense had settled into — and throw the ball a season-high 37 times against Clemson when Tucker and Shrader were both incredibly successful at running in recent weeks.

And there was the decision to call timeout against Clemson, with 45 seconds remaining, only to go for a field goal instead of the touchdown and leave time on the clock.

For SU, the solution isn’t black and white. Maybe Babers needs a better staffer, in his headset or next to him on the sidelines, to advise on those kinds of decisions. Maybe, more frequently, he needs to adhere to what the analytics suggest. Babers says he has a staff member to do some of those tasks on gameday, but maybe he needs a full-time staff member designated to that role (though that’s unlikely because SU doesn’t even have a special teams coordinator right now).

The bottom line is something needs to change. The results need to be better.

When Babers sent out Szmyt against Clemson for a field goal attempt over 45 yards instead of going for a fourth-and-1 conversion, star running back Sean Tucker was averaging 7.1 yards per carry. A week prior against No. 19 Wake Forest, Tucker was averaging 5.9 per carry, and Garrett Shrader averaging 6.1, but Babers sent out Szmyt on fourth-and-2. Both Shrader and Tucker said play-calling decisions like those are solely made by Babers and the coaching staff — the players don’t get a say in that moment. Babers has said sometimes he consults his players, and sometimes their responses filter into his decisions.

To Szmyt’s credit, the laces were facing outward for his 48-yard attempt against Clemson that failed to send the game into overtime. He said later that he still thinks he should’ve made the kick, despite the holding error. But maybe more of the blame should fall on Babers than Szmyt.

Babers has said he always believes his players can get the job done, and it’s easy to second-guess decisions after the fact. Babers later said that when he asked Szmyt about his range before the final drive, the kicker told his head coach he could convert from as far as 60 yards. Babers cited Szmyt’s 54-yarder and 51-yarder from three years ago, and his 2018 Lou Groza Award as reasons he trusted the kicker even though he hasn’t matched that level of success this season.

So for the second straight week, the head coach placed his faith in Szmyt — who’s now 1-of-5 on field goals longer than 40 yards — instead of Tucker and Shrader’s rushing abilities.

Even if Babers was fully adamant that the Orange should kick the field goal, he used SU’s final timeout instead of burning an additional 35 seconds off the clock. Had Szmyt successfully converted the field goal attempt, Babers would’ve left Clemson about 40 seconds — and one timeout — to march downfield for the game-winning field goal. The logical decision would’ve been to let the clock run all the way down and kick in the final seconds to force overtime. Or, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney would’ve used his final timeout to stop the clock from winding down.

Babers explained postgame that the decision to kick was because the Orange wanted to play for overtime, but calling a timeout contradicts that. Babers did say that SU used the timeout to discuss what to do, and Shrader corroborated that — there were conversations about both going for it or kicking.

The problem is that the decision should’ve been made sooner. In this instance, Babers couldn’t afford to stop the clock and then decide what to do. On the previous third-and-2 play, he should’ve planned ahead.

If Syracuse was going for the fourth down conversion, then a timeout was logical because it wanted to call the perfect fourth-and-short play. But if it wanted to kick, the timeout didn’t make sense because it left the door open for Clemson.

Of course, none of that mattered because Szmyt’s kick was way off. But to a certain degree, calling timeout before a game-tying kick was like icing his own kicker. It’s proof that even if Szmyt made the kick, Babers didn’t make a timely decision.

And beyond poor clock management, Babers justified his decision to kick the field goal because he said SU had “momentum.” He said he didn’t want the game to end on a failed fourth-and-1 conversion because “you want to play more,” so instead, the game ended on a 48-yard miss from his kicker. He was kicking to play overtime, but if SU really had momentum like he said, the logical decision would’ve been to go for it and finish the game with a touchdown.

Published on October 20, 2021 at 10:24 pm