As he continues to guide his team through a global pandemic and the nation's most significant movement for racial justice since the '60s, Dino Babers is also less than two weeks away from kicking off his ninth season as a head football coach, a season that promises to be unlike any other.

"It's extremely different," said the fifth-year Syracuse coach during his weekly virtual press conference Monday afternoon. "You feel like the fires over there in California, every day there's something else cropping up that you've got to put out."

What You Need To Know


  • SU football coach Dino Babers kicks off his fifth season with the Orange September 12

  • Babers is guiding his team through a global pandemic and national social unrest

  • The 59-year-old veteran coach says his players' mental health is one of his major concerns heading into the season

  • Syracuse has had only one player opt out of the fall season, freshman defensive lineman Cooper Dawson

Babers, whose job has always been centered on getting his players ready physically, says this season there is an even greater concern of making sure they're in peak condition mentally, with the added stressors of an invisible virus and highly visible unrest. He says he wishes young people didn't have to go through what they're going through right now, and even takes some responsibility for it.

"It's kind of sad that they've had to deal with some of these issues that we, as an older generation, didn't clean up a long time ago," he said while searching for a silver lining. "It's one of those times where there's a lot of pain, and where there's a lot of pain, there's normally a lot of growth as well."

The Orange mentor says the fact that the most recent example of social injustice, the shooting of Jason Blake, happened while he and his team were together in Syracuse has made it much easier for Babers to help his players through it. Being able to see and 'feel' his players, in person and not on-line, has made their conversations about the incident more impactful.

And it's having those conversations on a recurring basis that Dino says has been the best strategy for steering his charges through the murky waters of 2020, often encouraging his players to take the lead and speak up when issues arise.

"Let's not let it fester, OK, don't simmer with it. Let's get right to it, and see if we can get those questions answered for you so we can take that mental load off of you, and free your mind so you can relax and get back to the things you need to do."

To date, there has only been one Syracuse player who's publicly opted out of playing this fall, and Babers said Monday he still doesn't know if there will be others. And while that clearly bothers him, the coach says nowadays, it's important to be flexible.

Despite facing all of these challenges, Babers seems to feel good about the way his team is coming along with opening day now less than two weeks away. He sounds encouraged by the way his players performed in their second and final preseason scrimmage, and by how well his two new coordinators have blended in. Now comes the task of trying to get his team laser-focused on football and not all the outside distractions for the next three and a half months, with the success of the season riding on it.

"2020 will be unlike any season that we've ever gone through, and the closer that I can keep it to being normal on the football field, I think the better off the young men will be. If you find a way to survive it, it's going to make you stronger, and it's going to make you better. That's what I'm trying to do with our family over here at Syracuse."