I don't think I did this exercise last year. COVID kind of destroyed HS football in NYS for the fall of 2020. Some games were played in the spring, but it was a shortened schedule. The local all region and all league teams I depend on to populate my database were not done, or were done so late that they were of no help to me, wanted to publish this info in early January, so we could follow the recruitment of the players through the following year. And a lot of the newspapers that publish these teams have gone to restricted publishing, where you need to subscribe to gain access to the data.
Things were better this past year. NYS HS football had a fairly normal season, were a complete or very close to complete schedule was played. All region teams were published in December. I did a lot of investigating, NYS Prospect on Twitter issued invitations to many top players from NYS for a combine featuring the top players from the NE USA. I looked at a lot of film.
What follows is my list of the best prospects in NYS for the class of 2023. This is not a list of the best players, but the best prospects. There are a lot of really good 5'6 RBS, or 5'10 OL, etc. that are really good HS players but not P5 level prospects.
Some general comments:
It looks like 2023 is going to be a good year for recruits in NYS. By my count, there are at least 16 players who already have college offers. 15 with offers from FBS level programs. I expect that number to go to at least 25 in coming months. Probably more.
Looks like we have 5 national level prospects out there for this class. Most come from the NYC area, as has been the case for a while now.
There are a lot of impressive defensive linemen out there. Some nice WR prospects. Some promising QBs and CBs. Not much in the way of OL or RBs.
NYS Best Prospects Class of 2023
It looks like Syracuse is going through issuing offers for the class of 2023 region by region, starting with Florida. I expect we will see a few more players from NYS offered by Syracuse soon. By my count, we have offered only 6 to date.
Note that there are separate work sheets on this spreadsheet for the classes of 2024 and 2025.
The class of 2024 already 2 guys who look like they are going to be national recruits and a bevy of other impressive players. By my count, we have offered at least 2 players. One is Syair Torrence, who is from Syracuse and whose brother plays for the Syracuse basketball team.
Should mention Caden Brown, an impressive DE prospect from Brooklyn, whose dad (Alden Brown) is a Syracuse alum.
The class of 2025 is a small one so far, which is no surprise. These kids were freshmen in HS last fall.
Rich Belin is the only player I have with an offer from Syracuse. He is a younger brother of Henry Belin, who Syracuse recruited hard but ended up at Duke. Rich played mostly WR as a frosh but projects as a QB. The kids listed are mostly athletic freaks who matured early enough to play well as freshmen in HS. It remains to be seen if they will continue to develop as they mature.
