Now in his sixth decade of covering SU sports, Brad was sports director of WSYR radio for eight years into the early 1990s, then wrote the Orange Watch column for The Big Orange/The Juice print publication for 18 years. A Syracuse University graduate, Brad currently runs his own media consulting business in the Philadelphia suburbs. Follow him on Twitter @BradBierman.
As he assessed his team Monday during his weekly press conference, head coach Dino Babers traced the rise and growth of already matching last year’s win total with a month to go, from the crazy 76-61 loss to Pittsburgh in last season’s road finale.
It would be fun for Syracuse football to face old Big East rivals Miami and Virginia Tech each season by changing the current ACC football divisional structure.
And this is entering jinx territory, but winning out the regular season and winning the conference championship to collect 10 wins for the first time since 2001, Syracuse would find themselves in the Orange Bowl for the first time since Donovan McNabb was under center.
Bringing his distinctive brand of football to his third head coaching stop in a 29 year overall career, Babers has seen how far this SU team has come in such a short time.
Even the fastest kickoff return players, as evidenced by the speedy Turner in the ’96 Pitt game, have to dodge obstacles on route to running some 100 yards, so it’s hard to do that in 10 seconds or less.