As someone who’s spent most of his 58-year life either playing or coaching the sport, Dino Babers probably has more football knowledge in his right pinky toenail than I have in my entire body. But I can’t, for the life of me, understand why he sent Tommy DeVito back out on the field a couple Saturdays ago with Syracuse leading 41-3 in the fourth quarter of a game with little significance except to serve as an easy “W”. And I’m even more confused after asking Coach Babers about it twice at his weekly press conference Monday morning.
DeVito apparently sustained an injury on the final play of the series in question and was seen wincing in pain as he jogged to the sideline.
However, DeVito told the local media during SU’s weekly player availability that he is “good to go” for Thursday’s game at N.C. State. But he also admitted that he’s “a little banged up”, which doesn’t sound like he’s got a perfectly clean bill of health. That’s slightly concerning moving forward because there is little to no experience behind DeVito at that position, the key position on every football team in existence.
The first time, I asked SU’s fourth-year head coach to explain the reasoning behind why DeVito was still playing at that stage of the game, Babers answered curtly.
“He’s our starting quarterback. Next question.”
The second time, I asked him to discuss his philosophy on protecting the health of his starting quarterback when a game has gotten out of hand. Babers was adamant.
“When we’re out there, we’re trying to win a football game [and] we’re going to play our best players. When we feel the game is out of hand, all the players, all my sons, stepsons, are important.”
When Babers asked for further clarification on the question I was asking, I asked him again if he thought the health of his starting quarterback should be protected more than anyone else, the coach replied, “I think ALL the players need to be protected.”
None of us want to see any player get injured. But we’re also all well aware that injuries are a part of any sport, especially football. And they can happen at any time during a game. The commonly-held belief among the layperson (myself included) is that when a team is either winning or losing by a large margin, the reward of keeping your starting quarterback in the game is not worth the risk of him getting injured, so you take him out.
The desired side effect of that is giving your backup quarterback some much-needed game experience which could come in handy down the road. But Babers claims to subscribe to a different philosophy, one in which the best players play and no player is more important than the rest. Or there’s an alternative explanation.
My guess is the SU coach did not appreciate the perception of being second-guessed by a member of the media, one with whom he’s shared a good working relationship throughout his tenure. I’m also guessing that, knowing what we know now about the injury, if he had a chance to go back in time Babers might make a different decision and take Tommy out. And furthermore, if faced with a similar situation in a lopsided game in the future, Babers may give stronger consideration to a quicker hook.
But then again, he may not. And if that’s the case, expect the same questions to be asked again.