Syracuse (2-2, 0-1 Atlantic Coast) will head to MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey on Saturday to take on Notre Dame (1-3). The Fighting Irish are in the middle of a down season and just fired their defensive coordinator, Brian VanGorder, after losing 38-35 to Duke. Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly said all 22 starting positions on the field are up for grabs.

Here are three things Syracuse head coach Dino Babers said at his weekly press conference on Monday.

Notre Dame is wounded, SU will get its best shot

Babers doesn’t feel like he’s catching UND in a vulnerable position because of the Sunday’s firing and the turmoil within the team. Duke did that, he said, and now Syracuse will get the Fighting Irish’s best shot.

The Orange head coach said he wishes Notre Dame hadn’t fired anyone and that it had won the game against Duke.

“What normally happens in those situations is just like in a cowboy movies you circle the wagons and you find out who wants to fight and who doesn’t want to fight,” Babers said. “So we’re going to get an angry mama bear that’s been wounded, that’s going to be fighting and clawing and coming out with all they have, and really wish they wouldn’t had done anything and wish they would have won the game last week so we’re going to get their best shot. There’s no doubt.”

Babers hopes to play teams like Notre Dame in the Carrier Dome in the future

Babers said on a radio interview in August that he’d prefer to play Notre Dame in the Carrier Dome over MetLife Stadium. With the game coming up on Saturday, he reiterated the same point when asked about it.

“I get it that we get a lot of money and we’ll pay a lot of the bills and that’s really good. So that’s great,” Babers said. “I would hope that in the future that we’d get to play them in the Carrier Dome.

“In the future, I’d hope to get teams like that in the Carrier Dome.”

Syracuse has played three games at MetLife Stadium in the last four years and this game will be the fourth in five. The Orange has lost all the previous matchups including games against played Notre Dame in 2014, Penn State in 2013 and Southern California in 2012. The games have brought in high-caliber opponents, but take home games away from SU and moves them to a neutral site.

SU needs to be more flexible in 2nd halves

Two weeks ago against South Florida, Syracuse went up 17-0 in the first quarter before being outscored 45-3 to end the game. Against Connecticut last game, the Orange took a 14-0 lead within the first five minutes of the game before letting the Huskies come back to tie it at 14 and eventually outlasting UConn, 31-24.

In the last two games, SU has had four first quarter offensive touchdowns, compared with just one through the final three quarters.

Babers said that drop has to do with halftime adjustments and the flexibility in his young team.

“What happens when you get young teams especially, they’ve been trained that we’re trying to get them to be more flexible so they can bend more like (the) reed in the wind,” Babers said. “There’s times that we need to change concepts to keep the point production going. They have the concepts, even though they don’t practice the concepts. The concepts are what they need to hold onto. We’ll get better at that as we grow, but that’s been the biggest difference between first halves and second halves.”

Published on September 26, 2016 at 12:46 pm

Contact Jon: jrmettus@syr.edu | @jmettus