Despite the fact that he’s 247Sports’s 5th-best prospect of Syracuse’s 2016 class, Rex Culpepper has a lot going against him. For starters, he’s coming off an ACL tear that knocked him out of his entire senior season. And then there’s the fact that the Orange already has its quarterback of the future in Eric Dungey. But at some point Rex Culpepper will get on the field, and when he does he’ll be the best product of the 2016 class.
Let’s talk about that ACL injury. Culpepper wasn’t able to play a single game his senior year, and you can never know how well someone’s going to come back from an injury like that. But if there’s anyone who could come back better than ever, it might be Culpepper. When the Fizz talked to Culpepper’s high school coach Robert Weiner on National Signing Day, he said Culpepper had the kind of personality to be able to come back from anything.
“[Culpepper is] a young man who has never made anything but an A in his life as a student,” Weiner said. “A kid who is an eagle scout. A kid who two years went to a camp for kids with muscular dystrophy with me. And a kid who can play seven musical instruments. A kid who if your car breaks down, he can take the whole motor out and fix it.”
Straight A’s. Eagle Scout. Culpepper is determined, smart, and his head is in the right place, too.
But let’s talk some more about Weiner and where Culpepper comes from. Plant High School is one of the elite football programs in football. They’ve graduated NFL players such as Orson Charles, James Wilder Jr., Mike Williams and Aaron Murray.
Yes, that Aaron Murray. The one who is still the SEC’s all-time leader in career passing yards.
So when Weiner told the Fizz, “never in my life have I met a kid who is more of the total package than this kid,” it wasn’t for a lack of options.
Weiner also told the Fizz that in the time before his ACL injury he had seen Culpepper make great strides in his ability, and that if he had played his senior season he would have gotten a lot more attention from recruits.
“Syracuse doesn’t know, really, what they’re getting,” Weiner said.
Rex Culpepper probably won’t be the starting quarterback for the Orange against Colgate on September, and he might have to wait a while before he sees the field. But when he does get his chance, Culpepper is my pick to be the best player out of the 2016 class.
