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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 3, 2018

Dino Babers

Greensboro, North Carolina

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Syracuse head coach Dino Babers.

COACH BABERS: We're just disappointed obviously about last Saturday, but we're really excited about an opportunity to go down there and play the Pitt Panthers in Pittsburgh.

Q. I know it's early in the year league-wise, but what do you make of the parity of the league this year? Is it similar to last few years or do you feel it's a little bit better since Syracuse, Boston College and Duke are doing so well?
COACH BABERS: You know, I don't know. Really, we're only two games deep and we've only had an opportunity to play Clemson and Florida State. And we've still got a lot of conference games to go. So I really can't answer that about the parity, because really haven't touched enough teams to really talk about it.

Q. I was wondering about your defense, how it's changed in two years between the last time you were at Heinz Field and this coming Saturday, the two years is a long time in college football terms, isn't it?
COACH BABERS: It is a long time in college football terms. I just feel like we have a lot more confidence. We know exactly what we want to do. That doesn't mean the outcome's going to be any different than the last, than two years ago when we went down there, because this is a good Pitt football team and we're playing at their place.

But I just think that the 11 guys and the coaches, they just have a better feel for what we're trying to get done and they're more on the same page.

Q. Could you explain what the better feel is and what exactly that means?
COACH BABERS: I just think that there's a lot more trust, a lot more faith that the guy next to you is going to get his job done so you don't have to do more than what we're asking you to do for us to have an opportunity to stop the other opponent.

Q. (Indiscernible) on special teams, and it's been interesting to see people try and quantify that. I know there's an advanced statistics metric that puts you guys at the best in the country. I'm curious, do you have any way of quantifying the yardage or the various ways this special teams unit has helped? If not, have you ever had a unit, you know, in your kind of coaching experience that's done this much so quickly?
COACH BABERS: Well, first of all, we have a way of doing it. It's not open access to everybody. And we don't know whether it's the absolute measuring stick on how to do it. But we feel like we do have good special teams, whether it's one of the top special teams in the country, I don't know if that's true or false. But we feel we have a really good team that helps us win football games.

Q. I think you kind of knew what you had coming into the year with Sterling and Andre obviously emerged during camp. When you kind of look at that Clemson game, you decided to put him out there for the 51-yarder, what went into that? Was there consideration of punting? You always say he's passed every test he's given you, I can't imagine anything's come close to that?
COACH BABERS: Well, the last time I think he kicked a 50-yarder before that, and when he kicked the 50-yarder he had it by five yards. So I thought, well, okay, looks like it could be 55. I looked and there wasn't that much wind. This is one yard more and the last time he kicked it it went 55, so I thought he could get it there.

Q. I'm curious, a loss that was as frustrating as this past one, how does your team and in general how have your teams kind of responded to that as opposed to a big win or a blow-out loss, is there a difference in mindset the next week?
COACH BABERS: I don't know about that. And you really won't know how the team responded until the game is over Saturday. But we're trying to take it as one game at a time and we're trying to make sure the team doesn't beat us twice; that we need to come out with the right attitude and the right work ethic to get this bad taste out of our mouth and maybe get an opportunity to get a win in a place we haven't had a win in a very, very long time.

Q. What have you seen early in the week practice-wise with how the team's responded?
COACH BABERS: I think from yesterday's practice, which was our first practice, I thought they handled themselves very well and in a very mature manner.

Q. Obviously it was tough for you guys to move the ball in the second half of the game last week. What's the emphasis in terms of improving upon that for this week?
COACH BABERS: I think that as long as we get back in crossing our Ts and dotting our Is, worrying about what we're doing instead of other people, I think that we may have more success than we had last week.

Q. Meaning what, I guess? What are you focusing on amongst yourselves there in order to kind of improve upon that second half performance?
COACH BABERS: I think mostly just the techniques and the fundamentals. There was obviously mistakes made on our end. And some of the things that happened in the second half were just physical mismatches. They were better than us.

The things that we can correct, we try to correct. And then the other things, maybe we need to make a better decision on who we're going to attack and who we're not going to attack.

Q. Can you talk about Sterling and his punts? They seem to me, I've seen lots of punters at Syracuse, but his punts seem just to be a little bit different. His hang time is, the word is amazing?
COACH BABERS: Sterling is an NFL punter. Had an NFL punter when I first got here. He never got to punt for me. I think he went to the Denver Broncos. He might be at the Giants or somewhere now. But I've had NFL punters at UCLA. I've had NFL punters at other stops. And Sterling is going to be playing in the NFL. That's why it looks different, because they are. It is different.

Q. To look at something that Eric Dungey had brought up this week as well as (indiscernible), the statement that you can't let Clemson beat you twice, just how you've seen this team let that go in practice and leave that behind them, how you've seen the team move forward, if you've seen maturity from them in that respect and the ability to let it go and turn their focus forward?
COACH BABERS: We've only been together twice, once in a meeting and once on the practice field yesterday. But they worry about their business in a very mature manner. It seems like they have moved forward. Of course, the proof is in the pudding and we'll see what the results are on Saturday.

But I think that they put their best foot forward yesterday and they get another opportunity today in a couple of hours here.

Q. The defense the last time you went to Pittsburgh, obviously 76-61 was the score of the game, 137 points, just what you could say about the defensive improvement since that game and obviously this season, what this team has been able to do in year number three for you which I know you stated was a key year to show this maturation process especially on the defensive side?
COACH BABERS: You know, outside of the last drive of the Clemson game I thought our defense has been doing really well. We had some hiccups in the first game versus Western Michigan. I thought that was corrected for game two, game three and game four. And I thought we played a fantastic game for the first three quarters I really did. I don't think that we're in the game without our defense and the way they played against Clemson. And I'm really high on them and hopefully they'll have a performance like 2018 and not a performance like 2016 at Pittsburgh.

Q. Wanted to ask you about Trill Williams really quick. I think last week was the first week we saw him playing nickel. What kind of went into that and how do you think his skill set and body type kind of fits what you're looking to do there?
COACH BABERS: The main thing is, once again, we're just trying to build depth on our football team. Everything that we're doing here is we're just trying to prepare for the month of November. When these injuries really start to pile up. And then you start having guys play positions they've never played before and how big of an effect it's had on our football team in the last previous two years. We're kind of building some depth, giving experiences in some different places and just see if he can swallow that pill, see if he can digest it.

If he can, and we've got it in our back pocket. If we can't, then we just move on.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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