Syracuse needed a final flop to rid itself of the Dino Babers era

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BOCA RATON, Fla., — It had to end this way. The tumultuous tenure of Dino Babers, which lasted eight years and never made sense, had to end with the worst loss of the season. The first shutout in a bowl game in program history. The worst loss to a Group of 5 school since Syracuse joined the Atlantic Coast Conference. A game where the offense couldn’t move the ball and the defense got picked apart by a redshirt freshman quarterback and a first-year head coach. It all had to happen for the Orange, as a program, to move on.

The amount of positive buzz around Syracuse football since the hiring of Georgia defensive backs coach Fran Brown to replace Babers has been unparalleled. The level of recruits, coaching hires and transfer commitments is something that not even Doug Marrone, the golden child of SU when he was hired in 2009, could match. Brown has brought in the 15th-best transfer class this season and raised the class of 2024 recruiting ranking to tenth in the ACC, according to 247Sports.

But none of that helped Syracuse when it took the field against a South Florida team hoping for its first bowl win since 2018. Two programs met at a crossroads, one beginning its ascent after completing the second-best turnaround in college football, while the other one is still waiting at the starting gates to commence its rise. When Dan Villari was tossing pop passes to defensive linemen, and LeQuint Allen Jr. was bobbling a handoff on a double reverse, it felt reminiscent of Syracuse under Babers.

“I do think we’ll be a totally different team. Fran will definitely set the style in the way we’re going to train,” interim head coach Nunzio Campanile said.

Thursday night marked the official end of Babers’ tenure atop Syracuse. He tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to make the Orange the new fast and outclass the rest of the ACC, a conference that’s beaten up the Orange since 2013. Babers tried smaller offensive linemen and streaky receivers, but he couldn’t find a fit for Tommy DeVito or passing across the middle of the field. He found quick-twitch, diamond-in-the-rough defenders, but could never handle quarterbacks that made their own hay. Much like every aspect of the Bulls (7-6, 4-4 American Athletic Conference) 45-0 drubbing of the Orange (6-7, 2-6 ACC), Syracuse was trying to be something it never was.

And it needed to get it out of the way before Brown and top-end talent started their careers at SU. While Babers’ had his fingerprints all over the Boca Raton Bowl, so did the onset of Brown and his new regime. Former Ohio State quarterback Kyle McCord, former Texas A&M defensive lineman Fadil Diggs and top recruits James Heard Jr., Zeed Haynes and Jackson Meeks all showed up to watch their new team play. Brown and new defensive coordinator Elijah Robinson — two of the top 10 recruits in the nation, now both Syracuse’s — took pregame photos with fans and watched from the sidelines.

They couldn’t do anything but watch as Sean Atkins sped off past Alijah Clark to put USF on the board, or when Jack Stonehouse bobbled the snap and Brady Denaburg coughed the ball into Aamaris Brown’s hands for him to take across the field into the end zone. The Brown era would have to wait, idling in neutral as a two-score game became three, then four, then insurmountable.

“(Brown) told us this feeling that we’re feeling right now, he told us that he doesn’t want to feel anymore,” Marlowe Wax said. “Stay locked in because a lot of things are going to be different.”

The Orange needed one more gut punch to remind them of where they’ve been. Throughout the season, Villari has echoed that 6-6 and a non-New Year’s 6 bowl game is not the goal. He said after SU’s final win over Wake Forest that he thought the Orange were a 10-win team this season. The talent was there. But the depth, the play calling, the midweek planning, the culture, wasn’t. Something needed to change, and the right guy needed to be brought in to begin implementing the necessary moves to turn the Orange, with all the talent they already possess, into a winner.

No program from a Power 5 conference has ever played in the Boca Raton Bowl. Syracuse was the last of the tier-two teams to be in a postseason matchup, and when Florida State didn’t make the College Football Playoff, it was Syracuse who had to wait and scramble for a bowl pairing. It was slated to be an old Big East matchup harkening back to the days when the Orange could compete under Marrone, but also the days of despair under Greg Robinson.

The juxtaposition between where these two programs were coming into the game couldn’t have been clearer. South Florida was ready. Syracuse, and the personnel that it had on the field, was not. As the clock wound down on the collegiate careers of Garrett Shrader, Chris Bleich and — possibly — Justin Barron, Wax and Damien Alford, South Florida’s bench couldn’t stop moving. The Orange were stoic.

“I thought (Brown) did a great job in the locker room of changing the mood and picking the guys up and getting them excited for the future,” Campanile said.

A 45-0 loss stung Wax and others who likely aren’t returning to Syracuse. The eight years of players under Babers saw one bowl victory. No one on the 2023 team won a postseason game with the Orange. South Florida, a team that had played just one Power 5 school this season before Thursday night, provided that opportunity. Now, they’ll leave empty-handed. But this loss, the blowout that was essentially over by halftime, could be the final cog Syracuse needed to remove to spur a rejuvenation.

It’s clear from the fanciful approach to recruiting and caliber of players that have already signed with Syracuse that Brown is hoping for an immediate change that will have a successful ripple effect on the program moving forward. SU is catching up on name, image and likeness infrastructure. It’s garnering top-end coaches that weren’t coming to Syracuse over the last decade. The new era has already begun off the field, but on the field needed one more bad performance to truly end an era of losing for Syracuse.

“He just told us that we’re not going to lose anymore. I believe him 100%,” Villari said.

The game was won when…

Stonehouse bobbled the snap on a 45-yard field goal attempt early in the first quarter. With the only cascade of rain coming down Thursday night, Campanile opted to kick a field goal on a 4th and 5, hoping to move the deficit to 7-3. While Campanile said the rain didn’t have any factor in Stonehouse bobbling the snap, he still had to flip the ball up to Brady Denaburg in hopes that the kicker could create a play.

Instead, Denaburg got hit from behind after taking just three steps and popped the ball up for Aamaris Brown to catch. The reserve defensive end took off 65 yards down the field, untouched, and leaped into the end zone for the touchdown. Campanile said the Orange wanted to keep Thursday night a one-score game so that they could run the ball consistently. The play ensured Syracuse, from an early point, never had that opportunity.

Quote of the night:

“I don’t think we lived up to our expectations, but I can tell you we’re never going to feel like this again,” Villari said.

Villari has been an outspoken critic of the narrative that Syracuse should be happy with a 6-6 record and bowl berth. When asked earlier in the season about Babers’ comment that the goal was to get the Orange to that mark, he said that his goal was the ACC Championship.

This season was the final straw for Babers because Syracuse couldn’t win games that it was supposed to. Losses to Boston College, Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech showed a clear discrepancy between where the program said it was heading and where it actually stood. Villari, who’s primed to be a top player in the ACC next year, as well as Caleb Okechukwu, have praised Brown on his willingness to ask players about what needs to change thus far.

Stat to know: .0588

Syracuse converted on just 1-of-17 third down opportunities, further stymying its chances of moving the ball down the field and scoring. While the Orange did weave in more downfield passing concepts, especially with Braden Davis later in the game, they still found themselves consistently far behind the sticks. South Florida’s Tramel Logan said on Wednesday that USF wanted to stack the box and press Syracuse to pass more during the game, which ended up leading to the worst 3rd down conversion rate since SU went 0-for-9 against Virginia Tech.

Game ball: Kevin Jobity Jr.

On a defense that was without contributors Leon Lowery and Jeremiah Wilson, the Orange got torched. The bowl game was a chance for receivers and defensive linemen to separate themselves from a crowded group of players looking to make the leap to being a difference maker. Jobity Jr. has consistently shown his improvement through an increase in playing time. He finished the game with five tackles, all of which were solo, including two tackles for loss and a five-yard sack.

Three final points:

Can Braden Davis play?
Davis came into Syracuse as someone who could take a big step and replace Shrader in 2024. But, like other quarterbacks Babers brought in throughout the years, he struggled to grasp the offense and separate himself enough to earn playing time. The former four-star recruit who transferred from South Carolina got his first taste of significant playing time in two years of college against South Florida and, at times, impressed.

Campanile said he liked Davis’s command of the offense when he was under center and said that the game will “pay huge dividends for him down the line.” He was raw and struggled with accuracy throughout, but he also extended plays with his legs and showed a willingness to stay in the pocket while progressing through his reads. McCord will likely be the starter from day one next year, but Davis might have played himself into a second-string role.

The mistakes have to go
Too many costly mistakes permeated through the bowl game, much like they did during the season under Babers. The numerous false starts, errand personal foul calls and offensive holds that handcuffed drives were omnipresent during the 45-0 freefall against the Bulls. Jason Simmons Jr.’s unnecessary roughness hit on Byrum Brown cost the Orange seven points. Two delay of game penalties on punts pinned Syracuse further back in its own territory. Holds placed the Orange further behind the chains they already couldn’t reach.

Under Brown, the hope is that those costly mistakes, a mark of Babers’ tenure with the Orange, will subside. And as Campanile said after the loss, Brown is going to implement an entirely different approach to training, which should help Syracuse.

What to make of Syracuse’s secondary
Much of the conversation surrounding Syracuse and transfer portal success has been because of high-end offensive players committing to the Orange. But its likely that SU’s secondary is going to be a weak spot in a conference that boasts NFL-level quarterbacks and receivers. Simmons Jr. and Jayden Bellamy got burned consistently by Atkins to the tune of six receptions for 93 yards and two touchdowns. If Barron and Isaiah Johnson, who didn’t play against South Florida, don’t come back next season, Syracuse is going to be extremely thin and inexperienced at a position it can’t be if it wants to compete against the top teams in the ACC.

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