Over the summer, The Juice Online will be featuring players on the 2018 Syracuse football team as we countdown to kickoff. Today, The Juice Online looks at senior quarterback Eric Dungey.
Dino Babers didn’t spend much time speaking about senior quarterback Eric Dungey during SU’s Spring Preview in April.
“We’ve seen Eric so many times,” Babers said, “that we know what he’s going to do.”
By now, Syracuse knows what its going to get from its star quarterback. In 2017, he threw for 2495 yards and 14 touchdowns, finishing with a rating of 122.8, becoming SU’s most proficient quarterback since Ryan Nassib.
But on the other side of what SU also knows about its quarterback is that he’s struggled to stay healthy.
For the third season since he assumed the starting quarterback role in mid-2015, Dungey couldn’t play a full season, missing the last three games of 2017 with a leg injury.
The Orange lost all three games in his absence, missing a bowl game for a fourth straight season.
Dungey is finally healthy again, and was all smiles during spring practices.
“I gained 10 pounds since the end of the season. I’m feeling great right now,” Dungey said. “Foot’s feeling good. I basically have a new foot right now.”
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With two years of Babers’ system under his belt, Dungey is able to focus on the nuances of the offense.
“It stays the same, but things slow down and it gets easier,” Dungey said. “[We’re] always trying to go faster. it’s never fast enough. I’ve always been saying that.”
He’s also grown to implicitly trust his coach.
“He’s taken on that father figure for me,” Dungey said of Babers. “It’s not much about getting screamed at anytime. He’s trying to coach to me to the best of his abilities. He knows I’m going to listen to anything he says.”
Inside slant: As Babers said, we know what we’re getting from Dungey at this point. When healthy, he’s one of the top quarterbacks in the ACC. But he still hasn’t put together a full season yet. If he can in his senior year (and part of that will involve him staying in the pocket), he has a chance to put together a special season.
Vitals:
- Birthdate: June 1996
- Hometown: Lake Oswego, Ore.
- High School: Lakeridge
- Position: Quarterback
- Class: Senior
- Height: 6’3″
- Weight: 202 lbs
Career highlights: In his junior season, Dungey set a Syracuse record and ranked sixth in the FBS in total offense (343.3 ypg), while topping the ACC in completions per game (25.0). In nine games, he completed 225 out of 377 pass attempts (59.7 pct.) for 2,495 yards, 14 touchdowns and nine interceptions.
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