Detnews.com
Reports surfaced late Thursday night that Syracuse has offered to four-star defensive tackle Danny O’Brien of Flint, MI. He says he will make an official visit sometime by the end of the summer to CNY. Officially listed at 6’3″, 275, O’Brien once again fits the bill as the space-eating impact DT Doug Marrone has been looking for in the trenches.
Other schools interested in Danny reads as a who’s who of college football: Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State, LSU, Notre Dame, Tennessee, USC and Wisconsin (among others). After losing out on Ishaq and Kevin McReynolds, O’Brien becomes the next elite defensive recruit Marrone sets his eyes on.
Meantime, the identity of “Recruit X” is still a mystery. The Fizz connected the dots to unveil a potential scenario where it was problem child Nu’keese Richardson. But many believe that’s too far-fetched for the conservative Marrone.
The waiting game has become an assault on the clock, every Orange football fan’s eyes skittishly watching days turn into weeks. On February 2nd, now 16 days ago, Doug Marrone said his 2011 recruiting class was not finished just yet. As he basked in the glow of National Signing Day’s haul, Marrone admitted there was still potentially be one last piece.
It was un-Doug-like, placing a tasty morsel of information (a clue even!) in front of the assembled media. Marrone has solidified a reputation of giving little information about his team, even less of those not yet or no longer on it. But here he was admitting one extra present might be waiting under the tree.
Marrone insisted the situation would resolve itself in approximately two weeks, which we have now passed. Who could “Recruit X” be? Was it, indeed, Richardson? His high school coach said the Orange had recruited the former Tennessee Vol who had found trouble at every turn in his young life. But it seemed to out of the ordinary; button-up Marrone (who had brought in a high school team captain with every one of his ’11 commits), eschewing the “right guy” and going after a young man with as much baggage as JetBlue?
The clock continues to tick and there is no sign of life from Nu’keese. Google news brings up nothing. There has been nary a whisper of his name around the program and on the SU campus. After what was predicted to be an eventful Signing Day for Richardson has turned into a ghost town. Tumbleweeds at Nu’keese’s house.
Could it have been another young man who committed elsewhere and thus Marrone is not at liberty to speak? While delusional optimists may have believed  it was consensus #1 recruit in the country Jadeavon Clowney, who declared for South Carolina earlier this week, it was absolutely not. Who? When? The wait continues.
Posted: D.A.
