3 takeaways from Syracuse at ACC Kickoff

The expanded three day ACC Kickoff event got underway Tuesday morning in Charlotte. Commissioner Jim Phillips began the day's agenda with his annual forum, followed by Syracuse joining Miami, Louisville and Georgia Tech holding both a press conference and separate media breakout sessions.

Here are three takeaways surrounding the Syracuse quartet of Dino Babers, Garrett Shrader, Marlowe Wax, and Orande Gadsden II, and highlighting Phillips' remarks.

The great Syracuse grad (1950) Al Davis coined the phrase during his Oakland Raiders dynasty years, and it applies to all head coaches, Babers included. As he enters his eighth season, SU needs to build off last year's bowl appearance and 7-6 record after a 6-0 start.

The Orange have not made consecutive bowl game appearances since Babers two predecessors, Doug Marone and Scott Shafer, led teams to bowl wins in 2012-13. The 'Cuse has only gone to three bowl games in its 10 ACC seasons.

Even against a tough mid-section of a schedule, six wins appears doable depending on injuries affecting depth,. It's whether that total can climb to, ley's say eight, that is the big question mark. The SU group gave a strong impression Tuesday morning that this is a team again poised to have ACC opponents take notice.

"When it comes to what they're capable of doing, they're capable of doing amazing things as long as they do it together." Babers said.

"As long as they don't care who gets the credit, as long as they drop the "E" so we can all G-O in the same direction as one and not as many, then we'll have an opportunity to do amazing things."

In describing running a similar offense to last season under new OC Jason Beck, which includes tweaks in which a core group of players can play different positions and speed up the pace of the offensive production.

"I feel like we have a clear-cut identity this year and where we're going to be," Shafer said with a smile.

"It's the same offense, but it will look a little bit different, and I think we'll be a lot more explosive. I know we'll be a lot more explosive. Score a lot more points, a lot more explosive plays."

"We have a great receiving room. Oronde leading the charge there," Shrader continued. "We are deeper than we have ever been since I've ever been here on the offensive line, and our receivers and running backs have grown tremendously."

Maybe a return to the 2016 hit "Orange is the new fast?"

Among the multitude of topics Phillips covered in his remarks and answers to questions from the media on hand, is that the ACC conference makes its official move to its new Charlotte headquarters over the next several weeks,.

After a 69-year association with Greensboro, the ACC is now based 92-miles down I-85 in uptown Charlotte, just a convenient several blocks from The Westin site of the 'Kickoff' event.

Phillips answered the expected questions about the revenue disparity between the ACC trailing the Big 10 and SEC,. He highlighted the newly created "success incentive initiative" which will award schools for winning revenue-generating postseason play, among the many steps being taken to generate more revenue.

"The league is healthy," Phillips insisted. "It just is."

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