Can't totally blame recruiting on facilities

[PhatOrange]

The number and quality of the recruits that Marrone gets on campus is very underwhelming. It's not like dozens of peer level BCS prospects are visiting and then turning us down. These kids don't even visit period so they're not seeing the facilities first hand. They must just be taking people's word for it about the facilities? Hard to believe.

Frankly Marrone and his staff could do a far better job getting kids interested and visiting here before deciding our facilities are weak. Hell buttgers has already had a sort of mini junior day where a bunch of the east coasts top junior prospects toured campus and watched a bowl practice. What has Syracuse done?

 

[OrangeFoo]

Looks like they updated their resumes and posted them monster.com and got in touch with the Property Brothers to stage their houses.

 

[Orangetradition44]

In my opinion, it's been an area of weakness and although facilities play a major role in recruiting... They are being used as an excuse.

 

[MadNY3]

In my opinion, it's been an area of weakness and although facilities play a major role in recruiting... They are being used as an excuse.

In my opinion, we do not have enough of a clue what role they play, but I'd rather have good ones than not.

 

[Whitey23]

So it's 100% on the fans?

 

[cliftonparksufan]

In my opinion, we do not have enough of a clue what role they play, but I'd rather have good ones than not.

I agree but it's not like our facilities are from some 1950's high school. We've all seen the pictures. I know this is a stupid comment, but don't any of these football players come to college for the curriculum. They are here five years, the smart ones can get an MBA. It's extremely frustrating to keep up with the Joneses. Something tells me that Cuse will always be chasing that. 50 years from now, this board will still be having these same discussions.

 

[chakka3421]

Phat I disagree - its a liability for getting the "big time" recruits to come here. Sure it's not 100% but it is a major stumbling block.

 

[Orangetradition44]

Oh, I agree. But I think strategy and salesmanship also play a big part, and I'm not sure we're very good at either.

In my opinion, we do not have enough of a clue what role they play, but I'd rather have good ones than not.

 

[rrlbees]

Phat I disagree - its a liability for getting the "big time" recruits to come here. Sure it's not 100% but it is a major stumbling block.

Do they go to the SU website and look at pictures?

Phat makes an excellent point.

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[Cusee44]

You can be the best salesman. I'm not buying your 1990 Honda Accord when I can get a 2013 BMW for the same price.

 

[orangedon44]

But fortunately every recruit isn't offered the "2013 BMW".

Recruiting has become such a joke with what is being done by the big money schools. Would love to see the scholarship limit be reduced to 22/80 to give the smaller schools a fighters chance.

 

[kingottoiii]

We are SU we never have and never will get the big time recruits coming here. Those are likely the kids where they look at the Big Boy "palaces" and drop SU from consideration. Even if we improve facilities we will still miss out on these kids because we are not ND, PSU, etc. If Marrone is upset about not getting 4 and 5 star kids because of facilities then it is not facilities as the major problem but Marrone's strategy. We are a "small market franchise" who needs to have a unique system and get under the radar kids to be successful. In addition ours peers for recruiting are Northeast schools. Those schools all lack facilities as well. We need to make improvements. When we get paid ACC $ the problem should be solved. Create a nice website/video of what it will look like and tell the kids you will be using this in a few years. Enough excuses.

 

[PhatOrange]

Phat I disagree - its a liability for getting the "big time" recruits to come here. Sure it's not 100% but it is a major stumbling block.

I could buy in if the recruits actually visited Syracuse first before deciding but they don't. They don't come for junior days (do we even have junior days anymore?), they don't come for unofficial visits in the spring, they don't come to camps, they don't visit officially. They are not seeing our campus and facilities first hand.

Recruiting is a lot like fundraising. Need to pound the pavement and hound people. If you want to tell me that Syracuse doesn't spend the money on 50 work study students, interns, or admins working in the recruiting office like I've heard they do at Rutgers then I could buy in that we also don't spend enough on the recruiting budget. But with that said, we need to do a better job getting the kids on campus first and then worrying about their thoughts on our facilities second.

 

[sufandu]

The number and quality of the recruits that Marrone gets on campus is very underwhelming. It's not like dozens of peer level BCS prospects are visiting and then turning us down. These kids don't even visit period so they're not seeing the facilities first hand. They must just be taking people's word for it about the facilities? Hard to believe.

Frankly Marrone and his staff could do a far better job getting kids interested and visiting here before deciding our facilities are weak. Hell buttgers has already had a sort of mini junior day where a bunch of the east coasts top junior prospects toured campus and watched a bowl practice. What has Syracuse done?

Maybe the reputation is enough to keep some away. If every other school tells a recruit SU's facilities are the worst of the teams recruiting him, many are going to believe it. They've only got 5 official visits so if SU is neck and neck with another school they're not going to waste one just to look at the weight room. The kids that visit on unofficial visits may see the facilities and decide right then that they don't want to come. From what people have said our facilities are compared to our competition and considering how much we were losing when he arrived, Marrone has worked wonders with recruiting.

 

[orangepassion]

I agree about not getting enough kids on campus, especially early in the game. I believe I heard the staff didn't want recruits to visit on gameday weekends (maybe so staff and players could focus more on the game).

 

[PhatOrange]

I agree about not getting enough kids on campus, especially early in the game. I believe I heard the staff didn't want recruits to visit on gameday weekends (maybe so staff and players could focus more on the game).

Not visiting on game day weekends is fine by me. The recruits might not get as much attention because coaches are trying to win a football game. And our gameday crowd leaves a lot to be desired.

There seems to be a common theme (or belief) though that facilities are the reason for poor(er) recruiting. It's part of the reason for sure, but there are other reasons before facilities enter the equation. We had 1 freaking junior day last season (that I'm aware) and it was for the spring game - and it was not very well attended. Having 1 junior day and not having it on a hoop weekend is crazy.

Rutgers had (I wanna say 3 or 4) and a couple of them happened before even signing day. They had juniors on campus the same time they're entertaining committed and uncommitted senior prospects. It's genius but simple.

We should already have junior days scheduled for January 12, February 10, February 23 and March 2. Do we?