A Look At Syracuse: Q&A With Nate Mink

In previewing Syracuse, BGI spoke with Nate Mink, who covers the Orange for Syracuse.com.

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Blue & Gold Illustrated: After a couple of losses to Louisville and South Florida, is Syracuse on track where it thought it’d be at this point in the season?

Mink: This was never about 2016 or year one when they talk about where they ultimately want to get to. Dino Babers was asked about this, and he just said, ‘We’re in the beginning stages here.’ There’s a process that needs to kind of play out here before they’re anywhere close to what they want it to look like. That is inherently going to take a couple of years just because there’s so much that needs to be fixed here in terms of the roster, personnel aligning with the schemes that they’re running on offense and defense.

They’re putting in good effort and they’re putting up pretty good numbers in comparison to what this program has put up in previous years. Their problem right now is they don’t have enough players, they just don’t have the depth overall on their roster and compounding that issue is that some of the players they do have are a little banged up. They’re just very skewed right now with normal scholarship numbers. To say that this is on-target after four games, this is a multi-year process rather than a game-by-game process this year.

BGI: How much of a rebuild is this for Babers?

Mink: Their problem in recent years is they have not had the stability on the coaching staff. That’s probably the best way to put it. They’ve had four coaches since 2004. The fifth-year seniors on this team, Dino’s their third coach already. They’ve had to essentially had to learn three different styles throughout their four or five years. When you have that craziness and that incohesiveness, it’s really hard to put together a firm recruiting plan. You’re recruiting guys for different systems every year.

What you have right now is kind of a hodge-podge and a mishmash of just guys that don’t necessarily fit into the schemes that this particular coaching staff wants to install. They have personnel for Z, but what they’re running on offense and defense requires personnel A. They’re kind of at opposite ends of the alphabet here. You really can’t be any more different in what they’re doing. They went from a slow, ball control option-type offense to now last week they ran 100-plus plays and they’re snapping the ball at a frenetic pace. They revamped the whole weight and strength and conditioning program.

I mean it’s a total 180 from what they were doing previously, and it’s going to take time. It’s going to take natural time in the recruiting process. I hate to say total rebuild, but it’s pretty damn close.

BGI: Has the team bought into what Babers is selling?

Mink: The guys are excited and they bought in from the beginning. One of the reasons they were so willing to do that so soon is Dino’s track record as a head coach. Kind of laid it out there in black and white. He’s been a head coach for four years, he’s won at least a share of a division championship in his conference every single year. He won at Eastern Illinois. He won a MAC championship last year.

They’ve seen the offensive output, they’ve seen that the quarterback is at or near the top of the country in passing yardage and the system has proven itself to work. They were excited to hit the ground running and buy into the conditioning changes. That’s one of the more noticeable and more encouraging signs is that what Syracuse does is predicated on the kind of shape that they’re in and their conditioning level, and the staff has just been thrilled with the buy-in there and the way they’ve changed their bodies and gotten in shape.

BGI: Explain the lack of fan support at the Carrier Dome.

Mink: You can throw out any lame excuse you want, whether there’s competing entertainment options. The bottom line is it’s just going to take sustained success for them to fill the place and rejuvenate the fan base to the level they want. It’s been a such a decline for almost two decades now that people got turned off, and you just inherently lose faith that after you’ve seen the same story three times now in the last 15 years, you start to lose faith that this time’s going to be different. The product, they just haven’t been winning so no one wants to pay to see a losing team.

BGI: Who is someone to watch on offense?

Mink: Senior graduate transfer wide receiver Amba Etta-Tawo. He’s stepped in and he didn’t have a spring ball. He came in during the summer. For him to get off to the start he has, it’s been a real plus. He’s a fast guy, he’s speed on the edge and something that this team desperately needed. He filled that need very nicely. He’s been surprisingly strong with the ball. He’s taken control on some 50-50 balls and he’s wiggled himself out of some tight situations where he’s broke some tackles and stretched them into scoring plays. He’s been probably their most consistent receiver.

BGI: Why has Syracuse struggled defensively?

Mink: There has not been a lot of bright spots defensively so far. It’s just numbers and inexperience. Coming into the year we knew it was going to be thin. This is a team that has no defensive ends on their roster who have ever taken a college snap. You’re playing young, inexperienced guys at the point of attack, which is going to be a recipe for disaster. Then your back four is mostly substitutes.

They just can’t get stops. It’s a byproduct of just low numbers and inexperience. They don’t recruit at a high level to begin with, so you really need your starters to be on the field. When you lose a couple starters in the secondary, those are just holes you can’t account for or can’t expect to consistently account for.