Syracuse is an improving team under Dino Babers, and it isn’t due just to the meteoric rise of his offense with Eric Dungey at the helm. Brian Ward was brought in to complement the Orange fast-paced aerial attack implemented by Babers, and the results are better this year than they were in 2016 despite a talent drop. Long gone are the high-risk, high-reward, frenetic cover 0 jailbreak blitzes featured by Scott Shafer; Syracuse became a far more conservative defense since Ward’s hiring — incorporating mostly cover 2 derivatives in both man and zone — and has actually improved from disastrous to middling here in 2017.
Clemson vs. Syracuse: Defensive Scouting Report
