Not surprisingly, Syracuse recruit Chad Kelly is heading to Clemson. He made his decision at an announcement this afternoon at his high school in Buffalo. While the quarterback said all the right things to The Fizz, the latest scheduling by Team Kelly indicated loudly his desire to sign elsewhere.
From Kelly’s twitter today:
“Man it feels good to be a tiger”
“I’m a Clemson tiger baby can’t wait”
While many Syracuse fans are not happy with moral victories, it speaks volumes about the direction of the program that SU was in on a blue-chip quarterback recruit with the likes of Alabama and Clemson. Geography helped; Kelly was just a two-hour drive away. But being close to home didn’t automatically make SU players. While University of Buffalo was included in Kelly’s final list of seven schools, did anyone truly believe the Bulls were contenders?
The signal-caller spoke in glowing terms of the Orange, the coaching staff and the family atmosphere on the Hill. If you listened to the tenor of his voice while discussing SU, it was impossible to fake that type of enthusiasm.
But another hard lesson: Syracuse is not a power school yet. The Big East will never be the SEC or Big 10, so the Orange will have to sell something else to the blue-chippers and program-changers. Kelly was one of those. The Dougie is going to have to pull off a minor miracle to land one of the five-star recruits he’s been in on, but not closed. But the first is always the toughest. It’s a book Orange Nation would like to avoid reading again: Close, but no cigar.
Posted: D.A.
