After Further Review: Dino Babers Personal Foul Call Still a Mystery
In the third quarter of Syracuse's 17-7 loss to Rutgers, head coach Dino Babers was called for a personal foul. The Orange appeared to get a stop on third down that would have forced a field goal attempt. Instead, a holding penalty was called on Rutgers and offset by a personal foul on Syracuse. Babers objected to the personal foul portion of the offsetting penalties, and was immediately called for a personal foul of his own. Rutgers got a first down as a result and scored a touchdown on the very next play.
Here is what Babers said about the sequence after the game.
"I'm not quite sure what happened," Babers said. "I thought I saw a play, and I'm trying not to get fined, I thought I saw a play where we tackled a guy and got pushed back. Then I asked, I was sitting there waiting and I saw a personal foul call being called, and I was like 'I didn't see a targeting,' I was trying to figure out how the personal foul thing got called. When he came over and told me, he said the back was picked up and body slammed. I couldn't see it so you guys will have to help me with that. I was like, 'I didn't see anybody body slam anybody.' And I got a personal foul penalty called against me. I know I've never had a personal foul called on me as a head coach. I know I've never had one called on me as an assistant coach. I'm pretty dog gone sure I never had one called on me as a player and I've been playing since the 60s. I didn't use any profanity. I guess my English was too strong."
You can watch the reference sequence in the embedded tweets at the bottom of the page.
The penalty was odd for several reasons. First, objections to calls are made by coaches throughout every game. In fact, right before that play, Greg Schiano screamed at the officials for an extended period of time, well onto the field for portions of the tirade. Schiano was not called for a penalty. Nor are coaches yelling at officials rarely, if ever, called for penalties. So why this one on Dino?
Watching live from the press box, Dino was not animated and the flag seemed odd and rather quick. Rewatching the broadcast, you could see Dino did not agree with the penalty against his defense, but he was nowhere near as animated or loud as Schiano. There seemed to be a difference in how the two coaches were treated. In addition, after spending quite a bit of time listening to Schiano, the head referee refused to speak with Babers the personal foul called on him and instead directed him back to his sideline.
Syracuse did plenty to shoot itself in the foot on Saturday. There is no question about that. This sequence, however, does not appear to be one of them.
