Leading by one score midway through the third quarter, North Carolina State started with the ball on its own 14-yard line. On first down, running back Matthew Dayes got pushed back for four yards.

Wolfpack quarterback Ryan Finley started calling things out from shotgun and stepping up to talk to his offensive line on second down. While he was doing that, SU fans roared to life, cheering at a volume that all season had been reserved for third down.

SU head coach Dino Babers said he had noticed Clemson fans raise the noise level even on early downs and it was something he hoped Orange fans would do at home.

“You could see that that crowd was educated, like they had been doing that for years, since birth,” Babers said. “And if we can get some of that going on in the Carrier Dome where we make it extremely difficult for those other offenses … I think that’s going to be a huge advantage.”

Syracuse (4-6, 2-4 Atlantic Coast) had a chance to get back to .500 on Saturday. But it also had a chance to win over fans in what was announced as a season-high in attendance. For the first half of the year, Syracuse’s attendance was on pace for an all-time low.

The Carrier Dome gave Babers what he asked for on Saturday. Without a victory in the most winnable game left on the schedule, though, there’s no reason fans will want to create a more raucous environment in the Carrier Dome. SU didn’t hold up its end in a 35-20 loss to N.C. State (5-5, 2-4).

Tony D. Curtis | Staff Photographer

Babers has always preached “belief without evidence”. When he was introduced, he talked about how his system really takes its form in the middle of the second year, and he later said it might take even longer.

The expectations changed midway through the season after an upset victory over then-No. 17 Virginia Tech. Before the next game against Boston College, Babers said whichever team won would be in a good position to go to a bowl game. In last week’s press conference, he said his team couldn’t ask for a better schedule to win two more.

“The team right now is focused on winning,” junior linebacker Zaire Franklin said about the team’s mood after back-to-back losses. “We got two games left to win and we need two games to go the postseason. So we going out there to win two games.”

The fans might not be focused on this season anymore. It’s going to be hard to convince them that two wins are coming against a Florida State team that’s been ranked in the Top 25 all season and on the road against a Pittsburgh team that just beat Clemson in Death Valley.

That’s why the loss was so back-breaking to the perception of Babers’ inaugural season. His mantra is easier to sell to young football players. It’s harder to convince some fans that’ve been watching a program for longer than the current players have been alive.

It wouldn’t have been fair to expect SU to pull out the win at Clemson, and Babers made that clear with his David and Goliath reference. And the Orange has been ravaged by injuries this season, including one that held starting quarterback Eric Dungey out of this game.

But even Babers changed his tone midway through the year, realizing that his team had a chance to finish Year 1 slightly ahead of schedule. Even with the injured players out, this was still a winnable game against an opponent coming off four straight losses.

“I felt that we didn’t execute as well,” safety Rodney Williams said. “I don’t think they out-executed us.”

The season is by no means over. The Orange still could win the last two games of the season or even just one to make a bowl game. But the only thing harder than winning both those games might be persuading people that SU has a shot.

Later in the same drive, after the Wolfpack had moved the ball up 30 yards to the 44-yard line, Finley once again went up to his center to communicate with his O-line. Once again, Syracuse fans gave Babers his wish and roared to try and make it harder to communicate.

N.C. State converted four third downs on that drive and eventually scored a touchdown. SU didn’t score again.

“We’re going to continue to get better,” Babers said postgame. “It’s going to be a very, very clear sky for us in the future.”

It just became harder to convince fans of that.

Tomer Langer is an asst. copy editor at The Daily Orange, where his column appears occasionally. He can be reached at tdlanger@syr.edu or @tomer_langer.

Published on November 14, 2016 at 6:21 am