Dino Babers Explains Delay on Two Point Conversion & Accepting Third Down Penalty

In Syracuse's overtime loss to Wake Forest, there were several decisions that baffled Orange fans. Two of which head coach Dino Babers was asked about during his postgame press conference. The first was Syracuse getting a delay of game after scoring a touchdown to bring the Orange within one point. Syracuse was going to go for two in an attempt to win the game, but received a delay of game penalty instead. The second was accepting a holding penalty against Wake Forest on third and 13 when the play resulted in an incomplete pass. Instead of a 51 yard field goal attempt on fourth and 13 by declining the penalty, it was accepted giving Wake a third and 23. The Demon Deacons would convert that play and end up with a touchdown on the drive. Below are Babers' explanations (you can also watch/listen to them in the video at the top of the page).

Two Point Conversion: "The thing is, there wasn't a sense of urgency of us going out on the football field. There was certain cats that were taking their time and we needed to speed that thing up. It was disappointing. I didn't want it to go to overtime. It was disappointing that we got that penalty. Normally after touchdowns, I want to say normally it's a 25 second clock. They go to 25 seconds after a touchdown. The first thing was we were going to go for two. Getting the guys over here, and there's so many new guys, it's not a matter of just signaling it from the sideline. There's so many new guys you want to tell them what's going on. Now they have to have a sense of urgency going back out there and we kind of lacked that sense of urgency. The clock ran out of us."

Accepting Third Down Penalty Late Second Quarter: "The guys is the most accurate kicker in the history of Wake Forest. His longest is 47 yards, so I know what his longest kick is. He was in the stadium, booting it from 58 and drilling it in pregame warmups, if anybody watches pregame warmups. And I'm sitting there going 'he's like 900%.' This guy's not going to miss. So I had a choice of letting them get three or seeing if they can convert a third and 23 versus our defense. I don't know what the analytics are but you can guys look up the percentages and write one heck of an article. Even with the third and 23, we had a guy right there but we didn't make the play. So, I know this game's going to be a close game. It's always a close game. I didn't want to surrender three points right before the half because I knew it was going to come back to matter. And it did."

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