Dino Babers addressed the media at his weekly press conference Monday morning ahead of Syracuse’s (2-4, 0-2 Atlantic Coast) game at home against Virginia Tech (4-1, 2-0) on Saturday at 3:45 p.m.

Syracuse lost to Wake Forest, 28-9, this past Saturday, marking the midway point of the season. He refused to put a grade on the team, though.

Here are three things he said.

Two offensive linemen “pretty much” done for the year

Injured starting offensive linemen Omari Palmer, Jason Emerich and Cody Conway have not played in Syracuse’s last three games. Babers said two of those three are “pretty much done for the year.” He would not identify the one player that “maybe” could come back and did not know when that time would be.

“Maybe one of those three and I’m not going to identify which one so don’t ask,” Babers said of the possible returner out of the group.

A patchwork group of Michael Lasker, Evan Adams, Jamar McGloster, Colin Byrne and Aaron Roberts struggled picking up blitzes against Wake Forest, leading to five sacks and 11 tackles for loss allowed. After the game, Babers criticized the group’s execution and did so again on Monday.

Kendall Coleman’s hit could have gone either way

Defensive end Kendall Coleman was ejected from the Wake Forest game in the fourth quarter after hitting Demon Deacons quarterback John Wolford in the helmet late after a throw on Saturday. The throw set up a touchdown to put WFU up, 21-9, with four minutes left.

Because of the targeting call, Coleman is suspended for the first half against Virginia Tech.

After the game, Babers said he didn’t see the play, but said Monday that he has reviewed it.

“I looked at it a bunch of times,” Babers said. “I think it was a bang-bang play. Obviously, I think it could have been called either way. I’m still hopeful that they reverse the call. I did not see helmet-to-helmet contact. Now he did go high on the quarterback. I thought it was a shoulder pad.

I do not have the perfect look. The perfect clip yet. So if you guys have one out there to send me please let me see it. “

Eric Dungey was extremely courageous; SU should have run more early

Immediately after the Wake Forest loss, Babers said the team should have run the ball more, despite throwing it a season-low 26 times. Rain and wind from Hurricane Matthew curtailed the Orange passing game in the first half.

On Monday, he expressed the same sentiment because it would have taken extra hits away from quarterback Eric Dungey. The sophomore quarterback was sacked five times and ran the ball 18 times, split between sacks, scrambles and designed runs.

Dungey said none of the hits affected his throwing or mechanics later in the game,

“Those bruises add up when you want him the throw the ball efficiently in the third quarter and the fourth quarter,” Babers said. “I thought that the quarterback was extremely courageous the entire football game. You can control the amount of times he’s going to get hit when you run the football. And if we’d have ran it a little bit more I think he might have been and we have might have been a lot fresher in the second half when the weather changed to take more advantage of it.

Published on October 10, 2016 at 1:04 pm

Contact Jon: jrmettus@syr.edu | @jmettus