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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 14, 2016

Dino Babers

Greensboro, North Carolina

COACH BABERS: Obviously last Friday we ran into a very, very talented football team that was extremely well-coached and ready to play. It definitely surprised me on how quickly they jumped out and changed the game with the 21-0 lead, had us playing from behind.

I thought that the guys rallied to get it to within 14 points, even though some of the numbers on offense and defense were staggering. That Louisville team is a heck of a football team. They closed it out on us.

Now we're trying to regroup and make sure that fine football team only beats us once and it doesn't beat us twice.

Questions.

Q. Quinton Flowers on film, what you can say about his ability? Dual threat quarterbacks in two weeks. What have you seen from him?
COACH BABERS: I don't like what I've seen from him. He looks similar to the other guy. His ability with his legs to create offense for South Florida, his ability to throw the deep ball on the money to keep the defense playing offense is a little eerie. He reminds me of somebody that I've been having nightmares about.

Q. As far as on your side, your offensive line, protecting your quarterback. I know some guys weren't starters last year. What can you say about how the offensive line has looked to you?
COACH BABERS: Well, from a pass protection standpoint, I think they've been doing an okay job. There's been times when the quarterback's had to flush and scramble. That's not always on the offensive line. Sometimes that's been a runningback. Sometimes that's been a wide receiver running the wrong route. Sometimes that's a quarterback not doing exactly what he wants to do.

So from a protection standpoint, I think our offensive line has been fine. But we need to be able to find ways to run the football. There were certain looks during the game where we could have ran the ball better than what we did and we didn't execute. Now, some of that execution was based off who were the guys we were trying to run the ball at. There were some stout cats in there. Obviously with the interior part of Louisville's defense and their inside linebacker, they have some exceptional players.

Regardless of that, we've got to find a way to run the football and take the pressure off of our throwing game.

Q. Have you gotten the final word on Antwan and Juwan, what their final status is?
COACH BABERS: Those guys are banged up. They're limping around. Haven't got final status on them. Probably will come on later in the week.

Q. There are a handful of guys who haven't dressed. Heckel, Culpepper, Womack. Is the plan to redshirt those guys barring injuries or issues where they'd be pressed into action?
COACH BABERS: The way I'll answer that is some of the names that's exactly right, and some of the others the answer is no.

Q. Last week obviously you had a look at the read option. A lot of teams run it now. How important was it to get the younger defensive ends acclimated to getting to see it in real game time?
COACH BABERS: First of all, when people think of contain, maybe you're dealing with the younger Pop Warner kids, contain with the defensive ends, you're normally right. When you're talking about a college football game or NFL football game, there's contain with inside linebackers, there's contain with outside linebackers, there's contain with strong safeties, corners. The defense is a lot more complicated than simply saying the defensive ends are the ones that lost contain on zone read.

When you talk about containment of someone on zone read, it's a defensive thing. It's not just a one position type thing.

Q. Early on when Amba came to Syracuse, what did you see that he did with Eric that helped him acclimate to Eric?
COACH BABERS: We're a little different than some football teams. The NCAA allows you to have meetings over the summer. Ever since that rule has been installed, we have not exercised that part of the rule.

The throwing that Eric Dungey and Amba does over the summer is strictly with themselves.

We take that as an opportunity for our quarterback to take leadership of our football team. I thought that Eric and Amba did a fantastic job getting to know each other over the summer. We got that firsthand knowledge, an opportunity to see that for the very first time when two-a-days started.

Q. Eric Dungey, a young quarterback. Louisville has a notoriously strong pass-rush. Can you evaluate the job he did in that situation under the pressure without a big running game to help him, how well he played?
COACH BABERS: I think his legs kept us in the football game. Obviously with what that defense was doing to a lot of different areas that we were trying to attack during the football game, his legs were extremely valuable.

Now, one of the reasons why his legs were so valuable is because we were not efficient in the running game and we had mistakes with wide receivers and other positions. When you have a quarterback that is going to sit in the pocket, you need to be exactly right on those things.

That's exactly what we look to recruit. We will be exactly right on those things in the future. But until you get all those things clicking, there's nothing better than a quarterback that can get himself out of trouble.

Q. Talk about South Florida's defense.
COACH BABERS: First of all, I've gone against Northern Illinois three times in the last three years at two different institutions. I know what that program represents, and I know how they pride themselves on being able to run the football. Rod Carey being the X-O line coach. Just watching that South Florida defense versus that program was really alarming. They basically just tore them apart, broke them down, didn't talk really nice to them.

It's going to be an extremely difficult task. There's very talented on offense, they're very talented on defense. Coach Jeffries looks like he's got it going. I think we have a really, really big task in front of us.

Q. What are the three keys for you to pull off a win on Saturday, that you'd like to see?
COACH BABERS: First of all, I got to get Coach Taggart's name right (laughter).

I think the biggest thing for us is that we have to control the turnovers. We had two turnovers. We have to find a way to win the kicking game. We won the kicking game against Louisville. We have to find a way to win the kicking game again. Then we have to play better defense. I mean, you can't give up 21 points that fast in a football game and always be able to fight yourself back to a situation where you have a chance to win. We have to find a way to play better defense early and come out of the gate ready to go.

THE MODERATOR: Coach, thanks for being with us today.

COACH BABERS: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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