On Monday, at his weekly press conference, Syracuse head coach Dino Babers was asked about how he and his team are handling injuries to the program, with a number of guys missing significant time or out for the season six games into the year. Normally a guy who keeps things close to the vest, Babers was blunt in his assessment of the depth on the SU roster.
“Depth is gone,” Babers said Monday. “Our depth is in the transfer portal. You know how many guys we lost. You know what schools they play at. Schools like us, we’re not gonna have a lot of depth because it gets bought away.”
The fact that Babers is openly saying this is good in the fact that instead of speaking in cliche week after week, the head coach is actually voicing his frustrations. But, on the other side of that, he and the athletic department frankly need to do a better job retaining talent, and if they cannot, prepare for talent to leave by recruiting additional depth. Saying this after a 40-7 loss does not help as well, and it got former SU players active on social media.
Syracuse’s most high-profile losses in the transfer portal last year included Duce Chestnut leaving for LSU (where he is currently not with the team), and Ja’Had Carter heading to Ohio State where he has a grand total of two tackles this season in four games played. Now, they aren’t the only guys SU lost in the offseason, but it just goes to show what can happen when you leave.
But, the overall point of this is that Babers’ comment is a lame excuse for the Syracuse football program, and the overall athletic department as a whole still not being ready to handle the current world of college athletics. The launch of Orange United is a good start for NIL, as well as the renovation and addition of the Lally Athletic Complex, but SU is still many years behind its conference counterparts in terms of facilities, staff, and making money for the players.
Saying your team’s depth was bought away is just another way of saying that either your message was not convincing enough of them to stay, or the program could not handle the NIL requests of the players, an indictment of the team.
After an embarrassing two-week stretch with losses by 17 at home and then 33 on the road (an average margin of defeat of 25 points), the last thing Babers should be doing is making excuses about the roster he put together, because the only people to blame for Syracuse’s depth issues are the one’s within the program, for letting talent slip out the door when it could have been retained, or replacing them with adequate depth.
With a game against No. 4 Florida State on deck, a team that has excelled using the transfer portal to rebuild its program, maybe there are some things SU can learn from the Seminoles on roster-building. There’s a reason FSU is a top-five team in the country and opened as nearly a 20-point favorite.
