10-14-2017, 04:57 AM
Syracuse, N.Y. -- When Dino Babers stood in front of the Syracuse football press corps for the first time on Oct. 13, 2015, he made a strange request.
"Close your eyes for me," the newly hire coach said.
"You're in the Carrier Dome. Your house is filled. The feeling is electric. The noise is deafening. You have a defense that's relentless. You have a special teams that has been well-coached. You have an offense that will not huddle. And you have a game that's faster than you've ever seen on turf."
"Open your eyes. That's going to be a reality. That's going to be Syracuse football."
Six hundred and seventy-six days later, that vision became reality in the form of an 27-24 upset of No. 2 Clemson -- the program's greatest win since the Orangemen took down No. 1 Nebraska in 1984. SU's offense broke its string of slow starts, reeling off a 10-play, 72-yard touchdown drive on the first and never looked back. Its defense controlled the line of scrimmage and knocked Tigers quarterback Kelly Bryant out before halftime.
The result was the unthinkable for those outside the program -- even the most passionate of fans. Only the players, as junior quarterback Eric Dungey said on Tuesday, truly saw this coming.
"No one thinks we can do it except for us," Dungey said. "I kind of like that. It kind of makes us stronger, the chemistry between us."
"All the fans love us, they say that (we can win), but at the end of the day, the only people who believe we can do it is us."
With Dungey at the helm, the Orange's uptempo offense made a dominant Tigers defense appear vulnerable. The unit made uncharacteristic plays like late hits and blown coverages.
Dungey threw for 278 yards and three touchdowns, including a demonstrative 30-yard scoring strike to Steve Ishmael midway through the third quarter. He absorbed six sacks, and sealed the game with a sprint up the middle to convert on 3rd and 8 with 1:37 to play.
Ishmael, who was called for offensive pass interference twice (once negating a touchdown), was visibly emotional throughout the second half. But the nation's leader in receptions and receiving yards kept his hands off the defensive back on a critical timing route to move the chains and milk the clock down the stretch.
Dungey's other top target, slot man Erv Philips, caught a 66-yard touchdown down the middle with 5:13 left in the first quarter.
On defense, redshirt junior Chris Slayton twice spun off a block to bring down a scrambling Bryant -- the second of which likely gave the signal caller a concussion, CU head coach Dabo Swinney told a TV reporter at halftime. He laid out to sack replacement signal-caller Zerrick Cooper in similar fashion.
But guys on the "underbelly" as Babers calls it stepped up, too. Safeties Rodney Williams (6-yard tackle for loss) and Evan Foster (pass break-up) stalled out Tigers drives near midfield while. Veteran defender Kielan Whitner read a fake punt and covered it well.
Running back Dontae Strickland scored on a 23-yard screen pass to start the contest, but picked up a couple gritty first downs late in the contest. And the SU offensive line played its best game yet -- a result two members may have envisioned after a strong rushing showing in the second half at Pitt last week.
"That chemistry starts to build and now we're really starting to mesh," redshirt freshman center Airon Servais said.
When Dungey took a final knee to end the game, believers met non-believers as hundreds of the 42,475 in attendance rushed onto the Carrier Dome turf. In that moment, the losses sustained at North Carolina State and LSU in recent weeks faded into the distant past.
The Babers movement is fully in swing -- and that includes landing a pair of four-star offensive line commits in the Class of 2018 (he'll head to New York City to see one of them on Saturday).
Is this the moment that catapults SU back toward national relevance? Let's leave that thought with another Babers quote from his first day on the job.
"I really believe that we're going to start something that people are going to be talking about for a long, long time."
http://www.syracuse.com/orangefootball/
"Close your eyes for me," the newly hire coach said.
"You're in the Carrier Dome. Your house is filled. The feeling is electric. The noise is deafening. You have a defense that's relentless. You have a special teams that has been well-coached. You have an offense that will not huddle. And you have a game that's faster than you've ever seen on turf."
"Open your eyes. That's going to be a reality. That's going to be Syracuse football."
Six hundred and seventy-six days later, that vision became reality in the form of an 27-24 upset of No. 2 Clemson -- the program's greatest win since the Orangemen took down No. 1 Nebraska in 1984. SU's offense broke its string of slow starts, reeling off a 10-play, 72-yard touchdown drive on the first and never looked back. Its defense controlled the line of scrimmage and knocked Tigers quarterback Kelly Bryant out before halftime.
The result was the unthinkable for those outside the program -- even the most passionate of fans. Only the players, as junior quarterback Eric Dungey said on Tuesday, truly saw this coming.
"No one thinks we can do it except for us," Dungey said. "I kind of like that. It kind of makes us stronger, the chemistry between us."
"All the fans love us, they say that (we can win), but at the end of the day, the only people who believe we can do it is us."
With Dungey at the helm, the Orange's uptempo offense made a dominant Tigers defense appear vulnerable. The unit made uncharacteristic plays like late hits and blown coverages.
Dungey threw for 278 yards and three touchdowns, including a demonstrative 30-yard scoring strike to Steve Ishmael midway through the third quarter. He absorbed six sacks, and sealed the game with a sprint up the middle to convert on 3rd and 8 with 1:37 to play.
Ishmael, who was called for offensive pass interference twice (once negating a touchdown), was visibly emotional throughout the second half. But the nation's leader in receptions and receiving yards kept his hands off the defensive back on a critical timing route to move the chains and milk the clock down the stretch.
Dungey's other top target, slot man Erv Philips, caught a 66-yard touchdown down the middle with 5:13 left in the first quarter.
On defense, redshirt junior Chris Slayton twice spun off a block to bring down a scrambling Bryant -- the second of which likely gave the signal caller a concussion, CU head coach Dabo Swinney told a TV reporter at halftime. He laid out to sack replacement signal-caller Zerrick Cooper in similar fashion.
But guys on the "underbelly" as Babers calls it stepped up, too. Safeties Rodney Williams (6-yard tackle for loss) and Evan Foster (pass break-up) stalled out Tigers drives near midfield while. Veteran defender Kielan Whitner read a fake punt and covered it well.
Running back Dontae Strickland scored on a 23-yard screen pass to start the contest, but picked up a couple gritty first downs late in the contest. And the SU offensive line played its best game yet -- a result two members may have envisioned after a strong rushing showing in the second half at Pitt last week.
"That chemistry starts to build and now we're really starting to mesh," redshirt freshman center Airon Servais said.
When Dungey took a final knee to end the game, believers met non-believers as hundreds of the 42,475 in attendance rushed onto the Carrier Dome turf. In that moment, the losses sustained at North Carolina State and LSU in recent weeks faded into the distant past.
The Babers movement is fully in swing -- and that includes landing a pair of four-star offensive line commits in the Class of 2018 (he'll head to New York City to see one of them on Saturday).
Is this the moment that catapults SU back toward national relevance? Let's leave that thought with another Babers quote from his first day on the job.
"I really believe that we're going to start something that people are going to be talking about for a long, long time."
http://www.syracuse.com/orangefootball/