The rise and fall of Syracuse's Northeast recruiting base

[Crusty]

Nice article in The Daily Orange by Conor Smith

Don McPherson walked into Nassau Community College football head coach John Anselmo’s office, days after he found out that he would be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2008.

Sitting in the small office, the former Syracuse quarterback spoke with Anselmo and Ed Mack, who was an assistant at Nassau. After informing them of his induction, McPherson asked the coaches what they thought of SU’s then-head coach, Greg Robinson, who was coming off a 2-10 season in 2007. Anselmo and Mack replied that they had never met Robinson. In his three years as SU’s head coach, Robinson never visited the local school that sent over 150 players to Division I programs under Anselmo.

“You gotta be kidding me,” McPherson said.


Full article

 

[RandomGuy]

You're right. Fantastic article. Link didn't work for me. Explains a bunch. Long article. If you wake up in the middle of the night I don't recommend reading it...lol.

The rise and fall of Syracuse’s northeast recruiting base

“(Syracuse) really did well in our area getting recruits, things of that nature, then they had a change. There was just this really big, stark difference.”

dailyorange.com

 

[CuseLegacy]

I don't think Connor ever looked at the rosters of any of the other schools in our conference. With primarily the exception of the State schools none of them are dominating their state recruiting area. It's not just Syracuse, recruiting has changed.

 

[crales44]

Good article and there's a lot of truth there, but it's also misleading. I'm definitely not defending Robinson, but it leaves out that from 2001 until his firing, these coaches weren't sending P their best players anymore. He got a couple to visit, like Tamba Hali and Dwayne Jarrett, but our decline is as much about the tap running dry on P the last few years in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic as it is Robinson's obvious and less obvious failings.

Another factor in our recruiting decline is the severe downturn of prospects from Section 3. It never produced Florida level talent, but it went from a place that produced Dorsey Levens, Tim Green, Robert Drummond, Chris Gedney, Scott Schwedes, Cordell Mitchell, Will Allen, Marquise Walker, Mike Hart, Damien Mallery, Damien Rhodes, Elliot Goode, Latavious Murray, Lavar Lobdell, the Paulus Brothers, Marcus Sales, etc. to what? Stevie Scott and some guys at the backend of BC's roster under Addazio?

Anyway, I liked the article, found it informative, but it bothers me a bit when this is put forward as THE thing.

I'm also irritated about Anselmo talking about Gus Edwards. Maybe he would have been gone either way, but Anselmo and Co. LIED to him about Anselmo leaving the staff and then Anselmo pretended to be sick and unable to talk to him until it was announced he was going with Marrone to Buffalo.

 

[Goin' Deep]

If the MAJORITY of players wanted to stay in the NE or go to SYracuse, we might have a chance at owning the NE. Given that the regional talent is 3 to 4 hours away, Gross's lack of commitment to the football program, there was/is little attraction to come to CNY and play at Syracuse. Look at the "legacy recruits" that don't even consider CUSE.

 

[ForCuseSake]

One point I found interesting and concerning for future Northeast recruiting is staff consistency.

I think P’s last four years of recruiting were equally impacted by the revolving door of assistant coaches as much as crappy facilities.

He had a fair bit of turnover on those staffs as young guys moved up to either bigger salaries elsewhere or the NFL.

SU will always struggle to keep good assistants in the current P5 landscape. The program lost a decent RB coach to Indiana because of salary.

The only knock I’ve heard about Babers and local (Upstate NY) involved Buffalo HS recruiting. I took it with a gigantic grain of salt but apparently Dino didn’t meet with an elder statesman of Buffalo high school football and that helped sour the relationship with Buffalo HS coaches.

Who knows how accurate that is because too many of these Northeast HS football coaching communities are cliquey sewing circles.

 

[OrlandoCuse]

I think part of it is Northeast high school football has fallen significantly behind other areas. Kids in Texas are playing in 25k seat stadiums and have dedicated training facilities. Kids in CNY are playing in front of 500 people in bleachers on a field that’s shared with 4 other sports and they are lucky to have a weight bench and some barbells stored in a small room off the run down gym.

 

[Newhouser]

Dominating recruiting of NY football is not going to keep us relevant in the current college football landscape.

 

[721Comstock]

Dominating recruiting of NY football is not going to keep us relevant in the current college football landscape.

Yeah, being the big fish in the puddle that is NYS crootin, ain’t gonna get it done for us.

And frankly - the small handful of legit 4* NY kids have no desire to play for Syracuse, as they’d rather go to a factory, since that’s the best way to get to the NFL.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

There is plenty of talent in the Northeast. The problem is, that talent is raw. So you need a coach you can recognize kids based solely on potential and then also have the ability to develop that kid. HCRE did this his first stint at UConn. Marrone did this as well.

You cannot have success on that alone but you can create a solid foundation and have quality depth.

 

[PhatOrange]

There is plenty of talent in the Northeast. The problem is, that talent is raw. So you need a coach you can recognize kids based solely on potential and then also have the ability to develop that kid. HCRE did this his first stint at UConn. Marrone did this as well.

You cannot have success on that alone but you can create a solid foundation and have quality depth.

Its a great point but then in the new world of instant gratification where you need to have success quickly, coaches can't afford to recruit potential and then spend 3/4 years coaching them up and developing them. The only way to win now and sustain it is to recruit kids who are closer to a finished product. So you have to go where the talent is.

There's no way a Syracuse coach going forward will spend much if any amount of time recruiting NY kids. There's no NY HS investment in football either and D1 type kids play other sports.

 

[orangencpolice]

There is plenty of talent in the Northeast. The problem is, that talent is raw. So you need a coach you can recognize kids based solely on potential and then also have the ability to develop that kid. HCRE did this his first stint at UConn. Marrone did this as well.

You cannot have success on that alone but you can create a solid foundation and have quality depth.

Jay Bromley is a great example of this. A NYC kid that I don’t believe had any other D1 offers other than Syracuse. He was a great player and got much better with coaching throughout his college career. I believe HCDB also excels at developing players (Mang), but also needs to do better recruiting in general. If Schiano can get four star players there is no excuse why Babers can get some as well.

 

[djorange1989]

Jay Bromley is a great example of this. A NYC kid that I don’t believe had any other D1 offers other than Syracuse. He was a great player and got much better with coaching throughout his college career. I believe HCDB also excels at developing players (Mang), but also needs to do better recruiting in general. If Schiano can get four star players there is no excuse why Babers can get some as well.

Schiano oozes, like Locksley. Look at the coaches we have had, good or bad they have all been seemingly honest people. If we want used car scumbag head coach we can probably get one but that is not how this school rolls

 

[SkyTopBus44]

This article like our program and some fan mentality is stuck in the 1980s and 1990s. Let's talk about today and what we can do moving forward instead of constantly reliving the days of the past.

 

[Orangello]

AD Gross. The gift that keeps giving.

 

[dollarbill44]

I think part of it is Northeast high school football has fallen significantly behind other areas. Kids in Texas are playing in 25k seat stadiums and have dedicated training facilities. Kids in CNY are playing in front of 500 people in bleachers on a field that’s shared with 4 other sports and they are lucky to have a weight bench and some barbells stored in a small room off the run down gym.

Is your description of CNY athletic facilities based on current knowledge or just a guess? Because in my experience, albeit limited in CNY, but more than a couple of schools, most public schools have decent fitness facilities. Even the small high schools in Vermont have decent weight rooms and pretty nice gyms.
The fall of football in the NE is not because of lack of athletic facilities.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

Its a great point but then in the new world of instant gratification where you need to have success quickly, coaches can't afford to recruit potential and then spend 3/4 years coaching them up and developing them. The only way to win now and sustain it is to recruit kids who are closer to a finished product. So you have to go where the talent is.

There's no way a Syracuse coach going forward will spend much if any amount of time recruiting NY kids. There's no NY HS investment in football either and D1 type kids play other sports.

100% agree for guys looking to use SU as a stepping stone. Now that Dino is stuck here, he needs to go that development route. If Dino is replaced we need a guy who won't jump at the 1st sign of success. I think a guy like Leipold would have stayed. Too late now though. Wake was able to keep Clawson, so it can happen.

Having a guy with Northeast ties who wants to be in the Northeast. Or even SU ties. Also an older HC like Cignetti wouldn't be as likely to leave like Hafley will to BC.

 

[sutomcat]

Is your description of CNY athletic facilities based on current knowledge or just a guess? Because in my experience, albeit limited in CNY, but more than a couple of schools, most public schools have decent fitness facilities. Even the small high schools in Vermont have decent weight rooms and pretty nice gyms.
The fall of football in the NE is not because of lack of athletic facilities.

Almost every HS in CNY seems to have a field turf field these days. Pretty sure the weight rooms are fine.

The quality of coaching is surely not as good as in other places in the US. The number of people supporting the HS programs in NYS is certainly lower.

I think interest in HS football is at an all time low, at least since I have been following it in the early 1970s. Kids aren't stupid. They know the damage football does to bodies and brains. They know their chances of getting a full scholarship for football versus lacrosse, basketball, hockey, baseball etc.

Maybe the kids in NYS are a little smarter and less desperate for a way out than in other recruiting areas? There are so many smaller colleges around here looking for athletes for their teams. A lot of them are very good academically.

Probably easier for many to settle for playing at a lower level or play a sport that doesn't have the risks, pressure and intense time investment football requires.

 

[MikeSU02]

Few comments:

- I don't think trying to "own" the northeast when you are a northeast team is an Einstein-level strategy. Of course you want to own the close proximity to your campus.

- They did not expound nearly enough on the financial support of the program. The Browns jacket anecdote is sad and I guess we're supposed to extrapolate just how bad it was from it, but the whole article could have been about the landscape of financial investment into football programs and where we stood in that landscape. Our demise was set long before P's last season ever happened.

- We are a mid-size, private school in a state that does not have a depth of football talent like other areas (as the article noted). But the other thing to note is that it just is not the all-encompassing gravitational force that the sport is in other areas of the country. The reason that you see Florida, Georgia and Texas pump out all these kids (besides large populations as a starting point which NY state does have) is that football isn't "the favorite sport", it's the favorite sport by a country mile. It's basically second to God and Country.

- Even when we were doing well, we never had insane depth and our OL and DL play was never on the level of the guys that were going to big state schools. We could get skill guys, we could get TEs, we could have good individual linemen and overall decent line play, but we never were machines with top end talent across the board and depth to boot on the lines.

- We will never "own" the northeast as college football is currently structured. Michigan and Penn St can always walk in and grab kids. That is not even counting when Alabama just comes in and selects whatever kid they want bc they are Alabama and they have 70+ NFL players right now. We are not playing in the same economy as these other teams.

- I *do* think we need focus on ensuring our first stringers can at least be on the field with anyone we play. We need to have a developmental system in place to get kids in a good spot by their third year in the program where they are big enough, fast enough, strong enough that they can plug and play coming into camp. We will need to be able to land some portal guys that may lose out on a spot on a top tier school but still have immense talent. We need to win special teams every year. We are an indoor team. We need to have the best kickers and punters imaginable.

- There needs to be a focus on the OL continuing to have the mantra 'the whole is greater than the sum of its parts'. You can put together a good OL without individual superstars.

- What all this means? It means we need to be more focused on who we can land in recruiting and what that kid's role will be.

- We need to keep putting kids in the NFL, we'll win some recruiting battles. Last year was a great start and we clearly have dudes that will play on Sundays right now.

 

[orangenauburn]

The decline in D1 talent in Rochester - Syracuse - Utica corridor is a small but important part of it. When we were good, we always had depth players from this corridor plugging in and developing, often contributing as upperclassmen.

If you can rely on 3-4 kids locally each year that can contribute on some level during their time on campus, that gives you 12-16 players on a roster, local kids with local support, who can help you out.

Now you might get 1-2 out of that corridor and they are looking elsewhere for the most part.

 

[djorange1989]

It is a different world now. Our recruiting rankings are always going to be low, end of story. But same with Wake all these years and they are a consistent bowl team currently having a standout great year. They developed players better on the offensive side. We now have a good defensive staff and scheme with some nice 3 star players who look like NFL players, we have an OL coach who looks like the real deal and even with the jury out on Gilbert as an OC, it is no coincidence that the two best QBs we have gotten since Lewis left have come with Gilbert here and Martin gone. Gotta have the right staff who can develop kids and scheme to the talent we have and are not in over their heads

 

[tep624]

Jay Bromley is a great example of this. A NYC kid that I don’t believe had any other D1 offers other than Syracuse. He was a great player and got much better with coaching throughout his college career. I believe HCDB also excels at developing players (Mang), but also needs to do better recruiting in general. If Schiano can get four star players there is no excuse why Babers can get some as well.

Jay Bromley really is a unicorn though. Marrone's staff (Anselmo included) busted their asses to make inroads into Downstate/NYC recruiting and it took taking on some players that were lightly recruited that never really developed (Torian Phillips, Jeremiah Kobena, Mario Tull, Steve Rene, John Kinder, Donnie Simmons, Tyree Smallwood) or lightly recruited guys that were decent program starters or depth players (Robert Welsh, Ivan Foy, Ryan Sloan, Terrel Hunt, Alvin Cornelius, Omari Palmer) and then players with character issues (Malcom Cater) in order to start even landing solidly recruited high 3 star/low 4 star type talent (Brandon Reddish, Wayne Morgan, Jay Bromley (he wasn't graded like that but turned out to be that level of talent)). We did get some solid JUCO Talent out of Nassau which Anselmo obviously helped with tremendously (Tiller, Hay, Diabate, Fisher).

But you look at that entire population of downstate/NYC area players over 4 recruiting classes that I listed, it's not that impressive for the amount of effort put in. I know had Marrone stuck around for the 2013 class we definitely would have had Gus Edwards and a couple of other of the mid-range NYC area recruits, but we still weren't landing the most coveted guys even with all that effort and even with taking on so many developmental players to develop in roads with the programs and coaching staffs down there.

 

[tep624]

The decline in D1 talent in Rochester - Syracuse - Utica corridor is a small but important part of it. When we were good, we always had depth players from this corridor plugging in and developing, often contributing as upperclassmen.

If you can rely on 3-4 kids locally each year that can contribute on some level during their time on campus, that gives you 12-16 players on a roster, local kids with local support, who can help you out.

Now you might get 1-2 out of that corridor and they are looking elsewhere for the most part.

There definitely was a general decline in talent levels in CNY & Western NY, and then you couple that with the erosion of our program and facilities in P's latter years, not a good recipe for success. GRob had some luck with Lobdell, Sales and Collier, somehow, but unfortunately 2 of those 3 really didn't have much impact on the program.

 

[djorange1989]

Jay Bromley really is a unicorn though. Marrone's staff (Anselmo included) busted their asses to make inroads into NYC recruiting and it took taking on some players that were lightly recruited that never really developed (Torian Phillips, Jeremiah Kobena, Mario Tull, Steve Rene, John Kinder, Donnie Simmons, Tyree Smallwood) or lightly recruited guys that were decent program starters or depth players (Robert Welsh, Ivan Foy, Ryan Sloan, Terrel Hunt, Alvin Cornelius, Omari Palmer) and then players with character issues (Malcom Cater) in order to start even landing solidly recruited high 3 star/low 4 star type talent (Brandon Reddish, Wayne Morgan, Jay Bromley (he wasn't graded like that but turned out to be that level of talent)). We did get some solid JUCO Talent out of Nassau which Anselmo obviously helped with tremendously (Tiller, Hay, Diabate, Fisher).

But you look at that entire population of downstate/NYC area players over 4 recruiting classes that I listed, it's not that impressive for the amount of effort put in. I know had Marrone stuck around for the 2013 class we definitely would have had Gus Edwards and a couple of other of the mid-range NYC area recruits, but we still weren't landing the most coveted guys even with all that effort and even with taking on so many developmental players to develop in roads with the programs and coaching staffs down there.

great and detailed post, if you recruit NY hard you can find some solid kids, but not many, and we just are not going to get the once in a while 4 star/5 star kid that Ohio State/Penn State/Notre Dame are going to come after. We need to continue to focus hard on Florida, as well as Jersey, PA, MD, VA, OH, MI.

 

[tep624]

great and detailed post, if you recruit NY hard you can find some solid kids, but not many, and we just are not going to get the once in a while 4 star/5 star kid that Ohio State/Penn State/Notre Dame are going to come after. We need to continue to focus hard on Florida, as well as Jersey, PA, MD, VA, OH, MI.

And that's just the downstate kids, I didn't include the upstate kids they recruited over that 4 year period too.