Dino Babers leaned against a wall near the entrance to the postgame media workroom. He flipped through a packet with statistics from the biggest game in his year-and-a-half-long tenure at Syracuse. He put his head down and walked toward the podium.

About 30 minutes earlier, an orange wall enveloped near midfield as fans stormed the field and an ESPN reporter interviewed Babers. His players doused the SU head coach with water when he got back to the locker room. Then he conducted an impassioned locker room celebration, leading his team in a “Whose house? Our house!” chant, like he did last year after an upset victory over then-No. 17 Virginia Tech.

Now, in the workroom, the cameras and the team were gone. Babers was waiting alone, ready to deliver a message — just like he had done nearly two years prior, in December 2015, when Syracuse introduced him as its new head coach. On that day he walked in with a promise. On Friday night, he walked out with proof.

“I knew that this place could have an unbelievable home-field advantage,” Babers said postgame. “All I have to do was get everyone else to believe and have faith.”

Syracuse’s (4-3, 2-1 Atlantic Coast) win Friday night confirmed that faith. The events of the game — the play from his team, the passion in the crowd and the powerful ACC opponent he faced — unfolded exactly the way Babers said it would. By beating the defending national champion in No. 2 Clemson (6-1, 4-1), Babers secured a signature victory for his resume and validated his path at SU.

“I came to Syracuse because I wanted to play in one of the toughest divisions in college football,” Babers said. “I wanted to play in games that mattered.”

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Before selling fans, Babers had to convince his players to follow the blueprint. The challenge, though, was that they weren’t necessarily his players.

Babers inherited a Syracuse team that went 1-8 to end a season after it started 3-0. He took over for a group of players that adored Scott Shafer, their head coach who had just been fired. After Shafer’s last game, his players carried him off the field, leading the team into a time of uncertainty.

“Back when we lost eight in a row and everybody was leaving and coach fired …” said captain and linebacker Zaire Franklin. “The future’s uncertain. Don’t know whether I’m going to be here. I had doubts. Everybody had doubts.”

The first step was implementing two drastically different systems. First, Babers transformed an offense that had been largely slow and ineffective under Shafer into one of the fastest in the nation. Second, a defense predicated on bringing pressure consistently was going to sit back to avoid allowing big plays.

The change was evident from the initial practice. When Shafer was at the helm the team would do post-practice conditioning sprints, senior wide receiver Steve Ishmael said. Under Babers, that didn’t happen because practice moved so quickly that it was conditioning in and of itself.

“I died,” offensive tackle Jamar McGloster quipped. “It was hard at first going at that speed … I think I was 332 (pounds) at the time and it was rough.”

Babers claimed that it would take until the middle of his second year until his system would be fully implemented. He didn’t back off that claim after his team showed the first step toward major progress when it upset then-No. 17 Virginia Tech last season. Quarterback Eric Dungey only played one more full game after the win as Syracuse lost its last four games. In the process, the Orange ended with the second-worst attendance in Carrier Dome history.

He didn’t black off it after his team started 2-1 this season when many thought it should have started 3-0. A disappointing loss to Middle Tennessee State in Week 2 marred early-season hope for change. Babers blamed himself and said he didn’t prepare the team. Babers thinks the ACC is the best conference in college, so losing nonconference games against weaker opponents early in the season hurt his stated goal of making a bowl game.

There was palpable frustration from Babers and Dungey after the team dropped a game at Louisiana State in Week 4. Both spoke in sterner voices; the normally soft-spoken Babers loudly said, “We wanted to make them feel us,” while clenching the podium during the postgame presser. SU started off slowly and couldn’t chip away the deficit. Against a Top 25 team and renowned program, that could have been the key victory to sell those outside the program.

None of that mattered when the Orange played the Tigers. The crowd roared before Clemson’s first play of the game, reaching a decibel level that was typically only heard in key moments late in close games.

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The Orange could have folded several times throughout the night. When, on two separate occasions, the Tigers scored a game-tying touchdown less than a minute after SU had taken the lead. When Steve Ishmael had a touchdown called back on a weak pass interference call. When on the very next play, Dontae Strickland fumbled the ball and Clemson returned it for a touchdown.

But SU’s players had already bought in to Babers, and to each other. No mistake was going to break through their belief.

“It was completely different than previous years I’ve been on this team,” junior tackle Cody Conway said. “Like, in the past years we would hear a lot of negative talk after things like that. But this year it’s been mostly positives on the sidelines.”

The most important thing for Babers postgame was the impact the upset win would have on his players. He lamented after the LSU game that he wanted his team to have a win that they’d always remember, one they’d tell their grandchildren about. He gave them that against Clemson.

He also gave the fans exactly what he said he would. When he was first hired in December, Babers told everyone to visualize the scene — a loud Carrier Dome, a high-powered offense and a shutdown defense beating a top ACC foe —  with eyes closed. There were 42,475 sets of eyes in the Carrier Dome that saw his vision materialize Friday.

Sitting at the dais after the game, Babers told his team how proud he was of them in the locker room. What makes his job special are moments like that, getting to look into those “young people eyes,” he said. He then shared that he’d gotten offers to coach professional football but never wanted to because he felt that the “true spirit of the game” was in college football.

“Those are the guys … they’re doing it for the love of the brethren next to them,” Babers said. “The brotherhood. Band of brothers.”

This time, Babers was the one who closed his eyes. He paused and shook his head. He visualized this performance before anyone else had. Now as the belief spread through the building, he sat back and enjoyed it.

A smile crept across his face. He opened his eyes.

“Good stuff,” he said.

Published on October 15, 2017 at 10:43 pm