RALPH COTRAN05/06/2015

SYRACUSE FOOTBALL HAVING SUCCESS IN THE RECRUITING GAME

Sy racuse Un i ve r s i t y f o o t b a l l o ff e n s i v e c o o rd i n a t o r G e o rg e McDonald and director of recruiting Eric White have been delivering to their Twitter fans.

Exclamations such as “BOOM!” and “#BeBold” have been used to announce the a new a new verbal commitment from a prospect to play football at SU, the Post-Standard reports.

These exclamation are not unwarranted apparently. So far, Syracuse has earned itself commitments from 25 recruits – the highest at this point in the recruiting cycle since the statistic started being tracking 2002.

The 2015 Syracuse recruiting class is ranked 28th currently by Rivals.com and 43rd by Scout. McDonald has roots in Florida and has had a great deal of success so far with securing commitments from that area, with seven players thus far.

The high school football programs in that state have been shown to be strong recruiting grounds and having success there could prove invaluable for SU this season.

This influx of recruits so early in the cycle should allow the SU coaching staff to start looking ahead at 2016 and developing a long game.

The coaching staff, under the direction of McDonald, has made targeting players that fit the team’s philosophy and approach to play a top priority, and this could explain much of this early success in in recruiting.

“I think having a lot of guys on board shows the commitment that we’ve made to recruiting

and recruiting the right players, but it also shows from a university standpoint that we’re

doing something right and we have a lot of excitement across the country,” McDonald said.

McDonald’s excitement here is also not unwarranted. By any fair metric, Syracuse’s 7-6 finish in 2013 was quite an accomplishment for the team’s first season in the ACC combined with the fact that they were being led by a first-year coaching staff.

Head coach Scott Schaffer has said that he aims to win 8 this season, a number that would certainly validate the new recruits and give credence to McDonald’s strategies.

Thank you