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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 7, 2016

Dino Babers

Greensboro, North Carolina

DINO BABERS: Well, first of all, we know we have a huge task in front of us. Watching the tape, Louisville has quality athletes on both sides of the ball. Their defense is extremely stout. It's very difficult to run the football on, and they have some pass rushers that are just some very, very gifted athletic speed. They're a very, very fast defense, which means you don't have a lot of places to run the football when they're stout up the middle and they're faster than you are going around the edges.

No doubt for our offense that's going to be a difficult task, and then when you flip it over to the defensive side of the ball, they've got to go against the Walter Camp National Offensive Player of the Week, and Lamar is a fabulous player, responsible for eight touchdowns. I'm not even sure I've got eight touchdowns in my career. He did eight touchdowns in one game, and the way he did it, he's just an outstanding player, and that's not to take away from the running backs, the offensive line, four out of five starters back, receivers that can flat go. Coach Petrino has got a heck of a football team. Those guys have been together for a while. He's got a veteran staff, and the task is going to be very, very challenging for Syracuse.

Q. To kind of speak on Amba and just what you saw in him and what it is about him; he said that the Syracuse coaching staff didn't have to chase him, that he had seen enough when he went up against Bowling Green about what you do. So just about bringing him in and how excited he was for an opportunity to come to you and obviously play this game this season.
DINO BABERS: You know, I just -- Amba had some qualities that we really need here. He's a very quality person, a fine student, and he's got God-given abilities when it comes to speed. He's one of the faster guys on our team, and I think when you put someone that's a good person and really understands what you're trying to do here and he got an opportunity to see what we do firsthand when we played Maryland last year when I was at Bowling Green. He was eager to be a part of it, and I think that was half the battle. I'm really happy for his success, and hopefully he'll have more days like that in the future.

Q. And when you look at your offense and obviously wanting to go fast each time, it was brought up by Louisville's head coach Bobby Petrino that he wanted to make sure that the chains are set, and obviously you've been running this offense for a while. What can you say about making sure that everything is done correctly, and have you been approached about the chains being set as you go forward?
DINO BABERS: Well, I was always under the impression that the box was the most important thing, and if the box was set, then the chains could come later. I'm sure the officials will straighten it out and tell us how they do it.

Q. Have you ever had an instance before where the officials have said, you guys need to slow down and make sure these chains are set, or a coach has ever questioned it before or anything like that?
DINO BABERS: (Chuckling) No, I haven't, and I'm not concerned about the chains being set. I'm concerned with all the defensive speed they have and offensive speed they have and really good coaching and physical players. I don't think the game is going to be decided about the one or two seconds and whether the chains are set or not. I'm more concerned about that top-20 ranked football team he's bringing up in here than whether the chains are set or not.

Q. How close was your Colgate game to the kind of offense, the kind of tempo and the rhythm that you want to get into?
DINO BABERS: It's too slow. We've got to get faster.

Q. How so? What needs to speed up?
DINO BABERS: I think all the mechanics need to speed up. I thought our team was moving too slow between play to play. We can play faster than that.

Q. Is there a certain amount of seconds that you shoot for to get back up to the line?
DINO BABERS: Nope. We're not going to put a ceiling on it. We're not going to put a wall on it.

Q. You obviously were implementing a new defensive scheme this year, as well. How do you think the defense responded in that first game?
DINO BABERS: I was really proud of the defense. The Colgate football team is a nationally-ranked FCS team. That team is a quality team that's going to go deep in their playoffs. Even though we were playing an FCS opponent, we're playing the top 20 at that level, and a lot of those teams can come up and beat the bottom half of Power Five schools.

That was a good football team for our defense to give up only seven points to that quarterback running type offense and to be able to shut them out the rest of the way. I'm extremely proud of the way they played against them.

Q. My kind of understanding is that the way chain crews work is that they're hired by each individual school to do their home games. With kind of the emergence of tempo offenses and this discussion we're having this week about it, it would seem that it would benefit a team that's going tempo to have a fast chain crew. Is that something that crosses your mind and you plan for, or is this kind of all being overblown?
DINO BABERS: I think it's a little bit on the latter (chuckling).

Q. And switching gears a little bit, we've heard Juwan Dowels on the 1-yard line over Cordell Hudson. I know Cordell got beat a few times on that first drive. Is it a matter of how they played at Colgate or more of a matchup thing for Louisville?
DINO BABERS: I don't like to single out any individual when it comes to wins and losses. I think when we added up all the grades from the games and whatnot, I think that the other young man just deserved an opportunity to go out there first. I'm pretty sure both of them will play.

Q. Just kind of curious, when Sterling Hofrichter takes a punt, what are you looking for each time and what stands out about him and his skill set?
DINO BABERS: I did not understand what you said.

Q. What are you looking for from Sterling Hofrichter, anything specific?
DINO BABERS: You're talking about my punter?

Q. Yeah.
DINO BABERS: I would like for him to kick it extremely high where there's no return and make sure that he fields the ball and gets it away at a decent time so that we can operate efficiently so it doesn't get blocked, and then when we are sky kicking, we would like for him to drop the ball inside the 10 where it gives us an opportunity to down the ball or it goes out of bounds close to the goal line without crossing it.

Q. Is there anything in his skill set that stands out to you?
DINO BABERS: Yeah, I think he's a really good punter. I hope not to use him too much, but I think he has the ability to be an excellent punter for us.

Q. First question, what did you think of the offensive line play against Colgate?
DINO BABERS: I thought for us to get 500 something whatnot yards versus that defense, I thought that our offensive line played well.

Q. Obviously Kendall Coleman came in this year coming off an injury. How well do you think he's responded not really having been able to train for a couple months coming into Syracuse?
DINO BABERS: He has responded extremely well. Any time you can get a freshman that can come and start at any Division I school in college football and play in the very first game and run out there with the first unit, his response has been exceptional. He is going to be a good player.

Now, is he going to be -- at 18 is he going to be able to handle all these 21, 22 and 23 year olds? He probably has some growing up to do. But after he initially goes through that a year, year and a half, I think we're going to have a really good player.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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