Syracuse football coach Dino Babers will be back for 2021 despite a 1-10 season that led to some questions about his job security.
During a Zoom call with reporters, Syracuse athletic director John Wildhack let it be known Babers does not enter next season on the hot seat and has the full support of the athletic department and the university.
"The proverbial hot seat -- take that and just delete it," Wildhack said. "Dino's going to be our coach in 2021. I hope he's our coach for a long time. He knows that. I want him to be; the university does. He doesn't enter 2021 on any kind of hot seat. It's all about what we can do to get better in 2021 and how we develop them. The offseason is going to be incredibly, incredibly important. If we can get them through a traditional year in strength and conditioning, if we can get through spring football, we need time to develop this team. But I'm supportive of Coach Babers."
In five seasons as head coach, Babers has led Syracuse to just one winning season -- 10-3 in 2018. Since then, the Orange have been hurt by inconsistency on offense, particularly subpar play by the offensive line and at quarterback. That is especially troubling because Babers has an offensive background and one of his most famous taglines is "Orange is the New Fast" to describe his philosophy.
Wildhack said any staff changes would be up to Babers and repeatedly said he needs to see development with the overall team next season to be content the program is moving in the right direction.
"Nobody's pleased with a 1-10 record," Wildhack said. "We all have higher expectations. It's all about how we get this thing turned around and what we need to do to accomplish that. The key word is development. We've shown we have a number of young players that played and played quite well. When you start six freshmen against the No. 2 team in the country, that's daunting to say the least. There's no secrets in terms of where we need to improve upon, but the key word is the development of these young players. The potential's there. We need to turn that potential into reality."