The biggest day in college football recruiting is right around the corner and after a tremendous amount of turnover, Syracuse’s Class of 2016 is finally taking shape. To say that Dino Babers and his staff have had a busy week would be an understatement. In the last ten days, Syracuse has added 11, yes 11, players to its class of 2016.
As of today, Syracuse has 21 players who have verbally committed for next season.. Babers and Co. had a 24-hour stretch where he accepted 7 verbal commitments. Of course, it wasn’t all positive for DIno. This surge of commitments came after a stretch of eight decommitts. However, it has to be said, that Dino has done a tremendous job in a very short amount of time.
Less than two weeks ago, Syracuse had the 15th ranked recruiting class in the ACC, according to 247 sports. Today, Syracuse has leap-frogged three teams and now has the 12th ranked class in the ACC. This span has also seen the Orange jump over 20 spots in the national rankings to 56.
All of this means very little without comparison. So, let’s compare this class, in terms of ranking, to the Scott Shafer’s first season at the helm, 2013. Syracuse’s 2013 class had 22 commits, one more than this year’s class so far, and ranked 76th in the nation and 12th in the ACC. Shafer’s 2014 was significantly stronger but it is unfair to compare this class to then because Shafer had a full recruiting cycle. In 2013, like Babers this year, Shafer did not.
The point is, Dino Babers has, so far, done a very similiar job to what Scott Shafer did in his first, abridged, recruiting cycle.
It is also important to remember that Scott Shafer was a decent recruiter. Fans became frustrated with him more for his inability to manage a game and get the most out of the players that he worked to so hard to bring in.
Nothing is official until the players put pen to paper next week, and Syracuse can still add more players, but Babers’ first class is finally taking shape and, at the very least, he has met the precedent set by Scott Shafer.
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3 responses to “Comparing Dino Babers’ and Scott Shafer’s First Recruiting Class”
The only thing I would add is Marrone left Cuse around the 4th of January leaving Shafer 1 month to fill out his 1st class.
Babers was announced roughly 1 month earlier and that’s HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE!
OrangeinVA, that is true. However, it is important to remember that Shafer came from within the program while Babers did not. Shafer was involved in the SU recruiting process before he became head coach.
What program?? Yes Shafer was at Syracuse but Marrone took 5 coaches with him to Buffalo. When Marrone left so did some recruits. So Shafer had to rebuild staff, rebuild a class after he was appointed around January 10th. Babers pretty much has his crew ready to go by January 1st. Don’t get me wrong.
I’m not defending Shafer as HC…unfortunately he needed to go. Babers has done a great job recruiting it would seem( I hope we hold onto Nelson and get Reese). But to compare timeframes Jan 1 Babers had a near complete staff and had been a headcoach at BGSU. January 1st, Scott Shafer was a DC and totally unaware that in 10 days he would become a HC, need to rebuild a staff and still had to find out which recruits would stay and who would leave.
Babers KNEW who he wanted to stay and who he wanted to leave so far as recruits were concerned and a good idea of what recruits he could bring in.
Never the less, Babers acted quickly and seems to have executed these “transactions” with great skill…I like what he has done.