For the second straight week, SU football lost a big recruit to a powerhouse school. And once again, Syracuse fans had to face a harsh reality: The Orange has a lot to offer to prospective athletes on the gridiron, but nowhere near what schools like Notre Dame and Clemson have for blue-chippers.
- Listen to the Fresh FizzCast: Inside the Chad Kelly decision
Team Fizz breaks down why Syracuse was outdueled for Buffalo quarterback Chad Kelly’s services in the latest Fresh FizzCast. And Craig Hoffman tells much of the story in two sentences.
“All signs point to that Kelly wanted to play big time SEC/ACC football. Clemson has an SEC atmosphere. It is bonkers down there for a football game.”
That seems to be the main reason why the ‘Cuse continues to lose Kelly and other major recruits to bigger schools, although Doug Marrone still deserves some credit for getting his program in the hunt in the first place.
Officially, the Orange cracked Kelly’s top seven list. But as The Fizz reported over the weekend, the QB may have just included the Orange as a favor to the school.
Hoff and I disagree about whether Orange Nation should consider that as a positive.
Hoffman: “If SU was just in it until the end for Chad Kelly as a profile boost, Chad you weren’t doing us any favors bro. Coming here would have been nice. Keeping us in until the end just to drag us along and to try to do a favor. Unless it lands us the next guy and they say, ‘Chad Kelly almost went there.’ Because what 18-year-old kid says ‘you know what, the last 18-year-old kid almost went there’?”
Kanell: “At the end of the day, Ishaq Williams, Chad Kelly, David Perkins, Syracuse being in the discussion for an extended period of time for all those guys is a good thing. There are future recruits looking at these sorts of races. There are fans from all the power conferences and power schools across the country that heard Syracuse’s name a little more because it was in the hunt for those guys. The more publicity a school gets, it might not impact anything directly, but it does increase the chances that Syracuse can land a recruit in the future.”
Alex Plavin also joins the FizzCast, and he dissects just how long ago Kelly made up his mind. ‚ÄúBig Steve‚Äù Neikam, who has been in contact with Kelly‚Äôs high school coach throughout the process, adds his thoughts on Kelly’s priorities in choosing a school.
Finally, The Fizz welcomes in special guest Pete Yanity, who is the voice of the Clemson Tigers. When Yanity provided the main reason why the Buffalo prospect chose Clemson, it was a description that sounded awfully familiar to Orange fans.
“[Kelly] pointed out that he was going to be far away from home for years, and he needed to go to a place where he felt like it was a family atmosphere.”
So it turns out SU isn’t the only place that can boast a “family atmosphere.” And at least for now, atmosphere being equal, bigger southern schools will continue to beat out Syracuse for recruits like Chad Kelly.
Posted: Andrew Kanell
11 responses to “Fresh FizzCast: Inside the Chad Kelly Decision, Who’s Next for Syracuse”
Hey –
Oh well. Hoffman brings up a big point about the SU football atmosphere not matching Clemson’s. It won’t ever be that, but it can be great. You look at SU hoop recruiting. They bring in guys when they bang out the Dome and it’s Orange-d out. Who wouldn’t look at 33,000 crazies, a top ten matchup, and say “Yeah, this could work.” SU hoops doesn’t hope to compete with the big boys; they are a big boy.
I remember being at SU-Penn State in 1987 and saw a soldout crowd; DC, Owens, etc standing on the top railing; and the place going berserk after the bomb to Moore. If/When the SU football team starts approaching that, then they’ll have the atmosphere to win over recruits. They have to have continued strong success. As I’d commented before, beat USC and compete for the Big East #2 this year, and they’ll start getting the 4-stars here. Beating USC will go a long way to convincing recruits that SU is a big time program.
You can’t do much about losing Perkins the way they did. An unscrupulous coach might’ve provided him the way to visit the school. Marrone didn’t, Perkins couldn’t make it, ugh. But you could sway someone like Kelly with a gonzo atmosphere, and maybe you start to get tastes of it this year, once they start winning.
Kev
Just another followup, and a comparison with another school. I live outside Boston, and previously held BC season tickets for a few years. Didn’t really root for the team, but the choices for big-time college football in NE is either BC or UConn. Anyways, BC has no great atmosphere – no northeastern school, save Army, does – but they have a program which hasn’t had a losing season since 1998, averaging 8-9 wins. They’ve made a bunch of bowls, have OLs drafted in the first round of the draft, and, the key, they land the #25-#30 recruiting class every year. SU can surpass that level.
Kev
I hope they do beat USC – I’ve got endzone center seats and I’ll be fully decked out in SU gear…!
Maybe Kelly didn’t come here is that we are loaded pretty good at QB.
Syracuse isn’t getting these recruits yet, because we’ve beat no one truly above average last year besides west Virginia,Usf, and k-state. If we can beat Boston college, than we can snare the recruits there used to getting, but we lost to them this year. This is ok, because we play them from 2013-2021 every year According to fbschedules.com if until then we can beat local recruiting rivals like rutgers,Penn St, uconn, and pitt until then, we will be able to turn the corner. Think of it like su is on a curving road that leads to fate. Right now syracuse doesn’t know where 2 go, but each recruit that sifts out is like a step in the gps guiding us the right way. Big recruits don’t necessarily matter as much as we think they do. Some of the best current orange players where given chump ratings, like current pros: del one Carter,Arthur jones(who arguably had as good of a college career that you can expect out of highly touted jarron, his younger brother), and taj smith. To me and you, players like these don’t impress you in a recruiting standpoint when you look at it on your computer and see that there undesized or slow but what recruiting websites can measure is how much heart and effort a player is whiling to give to make his fundamentals sound, work on his flaws in any aspect of the game, and sacrifice himself on the field. Every highscholl team has a best player and some of those players are just show cased much better and more often. Our newest recruit, which isn’t even on this website yet, is a safety from Florida who comes from the same high school that late bloomer, but Florida recruit Jeff driskel went to, but when you see a 6-1 175 not rated safety, you assume he’s a chump not worth offering a scholarship. When those kinds of kids get oppurtunities like this, they shine and I’m willing to bet he has a better college career than at least one of are recruits in this class who has star(s). Stars to all of you at your computer are the only way for you to judge players. Have you seen the players like this safety Julian? Have you ever seem him play? For safeties, stats can be hidden, because good coverage isn’t rewarded with a tackle. Also I’m going to weigh on the blog post about the Dominic twitty post. In a single class, you can’t override on one position and maybe it was a mistake to offer one of the 2 d tackles committed in this class, but if you want big fish like jargon jones, you’ve gotta leave room for them, you can’t just nab 3 stars that will for sure come if you want to move upon the big east recruiting food chain. I do think it’s sad that he will be wasted and that will fuel him to get better and all of that but it seems a bit hypocritical to demand marrone to get twitty and jones when maybe they don’t have all those spots. Could it have worked before when Brantley and Coleman hadn’t yet committed? Yes, but what’s done is done so moving toward to you want a 50/50 jarron jones or Dominic twitty (his initials are the initials of his position).
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Dustin I am so proud of you and your creativity. That was a pefcret Mother’s Day presentation. You and Kelly are such a pefcret pair. Happy first Mother’s Day Kelly. Father’s Day is just around the corner. You will have to work hard to beat what Dusty did. We love you all. Maw-Maw Gail & Mr. Neil
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This article is a home run, pure and simple!
What a pleasure to find someone who identifies the issues so clearly
This forum needed shaking up and you’ve just done that. Great post!