The Vulnerability of a Syracuse QB: Are Game Reps Worth Potential Injury?
Syracuse, NY — There are two games left, but the Syracuse Orange 2020 football season is effectively over. In addition to nine defeats (six of them coming consecutively), there's been a lot lost along the way. Most notable has been the injuries forcing three different quarterbacks from games this season. Two of which required changes behind center the following week.
The most recent of those sidelining hits came Saturday when true freshman signal-caller JaCobian Morgan was blindsided by a Louisville pass rusher. The third quarter smash ended Morgan's night and caused some to speculate whether the 18-year-old would require hospitalization. Syracuse head coach Dino Babers provided the latest update on Morgan's health during his Monday press conference.
"Really don't know yet," Babers said. "We really push it back to as late on Monday as possible because the longer time they get to heal, the better the diagnosis is. So I really won't know until the very end of this day, starting into tomorrow."
The sack that left Morgan questionable came from his throwing side (right), but the first-year player never saw it coming. Louisville's 6'1", 225-pound OLB Yasir Abdullah came screaming off the edged and zipped past a whiffing Airon Servais on his way to the quarterback untouched. Abdullah's momentum, which was never slowed or stalled, catapulted the ball from Morgan's grasp and sent it about five yards into the backfield before it was recovered by a trailing Servais.
The miss by Servais was one of the three sacks allowed by the Orange offensive line in the 30-0 loss to the Cardinals. That performance, Babers says, is something they can live with.
"I thought they played a lot better than what some people believe," Babers said Monday. "We had some issues with some pass protection situations. That's just individuals getting into one-on-one battles. They're not going to win all of them. But I thought, for the most part, it wasn't as bad as everyone thinks it was. And I thought they did an OK job. We were decent."
Three sacks allowed is undoubtedly an improvement compared to the seven they were averaging in the first two games, but pass blocking, in general, has been a weakness for this offensive front all season. As a unit, Syracuse's front five has registered a pass-blocking grade of 52.3 from Pro Football Focus. That ranks them well within the bottom 100 of the 130 teams evaluated by the site. Aaron Servais, the redshirt senior Babers counted on anchoring this patched-together group, bottoms out with a team-low grade of 43. He's also allowed team highs in sacks (7) and quarterback pressures (22).
The question for Babers now becomes, "is building in-game experience for my freshman quarterbacks worth the possibility of serious injury?" As the head coach reflected on all that has transpired this season, his takeaway seemed to be that things could've been worse.
"We've got a bunch of injuries, and I'm thinking back to if any of the injuries were career-ending," Babers began on Monday. "And right now, my response, out of all the injuries we have, is no. Either everybody's coming back, or they're already back, which is a blessing."
Thankfully, no careers have been ended prematurely. But seasons have been cut short. Considering the uncertainty surrounding this upcoming offseason, it could be near-catastrophic to a young player's development if they were to suffer a significant setback during one of the two remaining, meaningless games. The numbers aren't good for Babers' offensive line, but he went to bat for them multiple times on Monday.
"The first thing everybody else will say is, 'Oh, it's the offensive line,'" Babers mocked. "It has to do with the [quarterback] experience. When you really know what you're doing and feel comfortable with what you're doing, it's really hard to get to a quarterback. It's really difficult to hit one really good where they get out of the game. So as they get older and understand how they are protected, I think they'll do a better job protecting themselves.
"Out of the three plays that happened with quarterbacks, two the quarterbacks could have prevented themselves, and only one was a physical play on someone else. I'm not going to get into which one was which. But the thing is, it has to do with the experience.
"Quarterbacks are protected more than any other position on the football field. If they're really well taught and they have the experience, it's very, very difficult to get one out of a game."
If knocking a quarterback out of play is really as tricky as Babers claims it to be, then opposing defenses have walked on water three different times this season. When it came to redshirt junior Tommy DeVito and redshirt senior Rex Culpepper, the experience wasn't enough to keep them upright. In my view, the hit that leveled the most inexperienced of the bunch was also the most egregious instance of offensive line incompetence.
Experience or not, maturity or not, Syracuse quarterbacks have been vulnerable all year long, and the injuries prove it. What are you willing to risk in exchange for a few more in-game reps?
