Tag: Syracuse Football

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The biggest moment from Rutgers football’s 17-7 win over Syracuse on Saturday didn’t happen on the field. It was a meltdown moment from Syracuse head coach Dino Babers that had a large part in turning the game towards Rutgers.

It may well have shifted all the momentum towards the Scarlet Knights.
With the game scoreless and 7:22 left in the third quarter, the end result turned on what would be a poor moment from Babers. Rutgers was piecing together their best drive of the afternoon and had the ball on the Syracuse 22-yard line. Facing a third-and-14, Rutgers quarterback Noah Vedral threw an eight-yard completion to wide receiver Shameen Jones that should have seen the offense coming off and the Scarlet Knights kicking unit running out onto the field.

Instead, offsetting penalties were called resulting in Rutgers facing another third-and-long.

Not fast.

That’s when Babers did the inexplicable, berating the officiating staff and earning an unsportsmanlike penalty that moved the ball up to the Syracuse 11-yard line. On the next play, running back Kyle Monangai bounced outside, found space and Rutgers had a 7-0 lead.

“Yeah, I didn’t, I didn’t see it, I don’t know how it happened but, you know, I know that’s one of the points of emphasis this year is coaches,” Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano told reporters after the game.

“I had my own issues.”

Babers had Syracuse playing relatively well up until that point, even as they (like Rutgers), struggled at times to move the ball. It was a shocking loss of cool from Babers, who doesn’t have a reputation as being particularly hard on game officials or excessive on the sideline.

Schiano might have been referencing his own argument animated discussion with the officials a few moments before. The Rutgers head coach, although visibly frustrated, did not draw a penalty.

In his postgame press conference, Schiano wouldn’t go into details about what got him upset with the officials.

“It doesn’t matter. I’ve often said that I made more mistakes today – you know, I was so mad at myself the way I coached. And so, who am I to think that these officials – and they’re going make mistakes too,” Schiano said.

“We all make mistakes. It’s just in the heat of the battle you get upset when you think that you were wronged. But look, everybody’s got a job to do, we’re all trying to do it. I felt the officials, really did a pretty good job. Just a grimy game. It was tough.”

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Syracuse head coach Dino Babers underscored that Saturday’s game against Rutgers football is a big win for the program given how both states recruit the same region. This includes “that city” of New Jersey, according to Babers.

With the return of Greg Schiano as head coach at Rutgers, recruiting New Jersey has become a priority once again for the Scarlet Knights. The same can be said for Syracuse, a program that comes down south to tap the deep talent pool in the Garden State.

So Saturday’s game at Syracuse is a big one for Rutgers to further cement themselves in their home state. The Orange would like to make further inroads in New Jersey, putting plenty on the line for both programs beyond just an out of conference win.

“You know, I think it’s really obvious that New Jersey has a lot of good players and that not only us but other schools go in there and recruit that city as well,” Babers told reporters this week.

“Some of our most explosive players on this team are from New Jersey. So, we understand that it’s a recruiting battle. I think recruiting is a little bit different now because I think there’s a lot of people who go all over the country, and it’s more, it’s more international recruiting as we got people from Hawaii on our football team.

“So that being said, New Jersey guys go all over the place. It’s not like the old days, everybody would stay at home, but it’s a very important recruiting area, there’s no doubt about it and it’s one of the top recruiting areas for us.”

The humor behind these comments, of course, is that New Jersey is a state and not a city. In addition, Hawaii is part of the United States and, despite not being part of the contiguous 48 states, is not considered “international.”

The irony behind the comments is that Babers was a former running back at Hawaii for five years beginning in 1979. He then began his coaching career with his alma mater as a graduate assistant in 1984.

Last year, Syracuse had just one player from New Jersey in their recruiting class, four-star defensive back Darian Chestnut. For the 2022 class, there are two players from the state among the dozen verbals to Babers’ program.