Syracuse can no longer deny it—Dino Babers must go

My patience with Babers has grown exponentially thinner

Simply put, I now believe that if Syracuse doesn’t finish this season with eight wins or more, Babers needs to go. My reasoning behind this newfound strictness stems from me asking myself the following question: Why should he be kept around after displaying a stagnant (if not worsening) standard?

There’s one thing schools look for in a head coach, and that’s the ability to establish an upward climb in hopes of him leaving the program in a better place than it was in when he got there. In the business, we call that coaching.

Now, is Babers successfully doing that? No. Not including this year, he’s been at the helm of the Orange for seven seasons, the same number that the two coaches before him—Scott Shafer and Doug Marrone—combined for. So far, Babers has had how many winning seasons at Syracuse? Two. How many did Shafer and Marrone combine for (each one having less time to work with, mind you)? Three.

Not only that, but Shafer and Marrone combined for an unbeaten bowl record of 3-0, while Babers’ currently sits at 1-1. And before anyone brings up Syracuse switching conferences in the middle of this timeline, just know that Shafer’s first year with the Orange pokes a hole right through that defense.

With all of this said, there’s no way to sugarcoat it: Babers’ fluke 2018 run isn’t enough to justify all of his failures. As a result, he came into this season desperately needing to show that he had what it took to pull off a consistent climb; it was merely a question of whether he would be able to.

For a little while there, it appeared as if the answer to that question was a resounding “yes.”