Dino Babers held his weekly press conference Monday morning ahead of Syracuse’s matchup with Wake Forest at 7 p.m. in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The Orange is coming off of a 50-33 loss to Notre Dame at MetLife Stadium on Saturday.

Here are three things he said.

“You guys will like the cake that we’re baking”

Babers compared the process he’s undergoing in trying to turn the Syracuse football team around to baking a cake. He believes the process is working and that even though there are “certain things that are not there yet,” he’ll either develop those aspects of the team or bring them in.

“I think when it’s all said and done, you guys will like the cake that we’re baking,” Babers said. “Right now is not the time to eat the batter. Wait for us to bake the cake.”

The team’s confidence is “in the middle”

 Babers has displayed a variety of emotions this season, saying he and the team was down after the South Florida loss, then speaking about pride and being happy after the win over Connecticut. After the loss to Notre Dame on Saturday, Babers said the team’s confidence is “somewhere in the middle.”

“I think that we have an opportunity to be good,” Babers said. “We’re fighting uphill. We’ve had a lot of injuries. We’ve got a lot of young people playing and we still have an opportunity to be good. We just have to circle the wagons and keep believing in what we’re doing and I think we’ll have a chance.”

Syracuse is off to a 2-3 start and might not be a favorite in another game this season.

There’s “a lot of stuff” the defense can’t run because of personnel

Babers has frequently mentioned the number of injuries his defense has suffered and inexperience of the healthy ones. Against Notre Dame, the Orange was down three starters on the defense. Defensive backs Antwan Cordy and Juwan Dowels are out for the season. Defensive tackle Kayton Samuels did not play. Safety Kielan Whitner did play after missing the previous two games.

Then linebacker Parris Bennett went down with an apparent left ankle injury and had to be carried off the field and into the tunnel.

Babers said that what he can run on defense is limited to the personnel that he has and that there’s “a lot of stuff” he can’t run with the defense right now.

“There’s certain things you can’t do because the personnel is not capable of doing it,” Babers said. “And then if you ask somebody to do something they’re not capable of doing …,” he finished before cutting himself off.

The Syracuse defense is among the worst in the nation, giving up 37.6 points per game (112th out of 128 ranked teams) and 504.2 yards per game (122nd).

Published on October 3, 2016 at 12:52 pm

Contact Jon: jrmettus@syr.edu | @jmettus