This is an article that I don’t necessarily want to write, but one that feels necessary. Fran Brown has done an excellent job recruiting and even if he isn’t in the top 10, the Orange deserve a ton of praise The reason is that I wrote almost the exact same piece one year ago, and got a lot of hate on social media for it. At the time, SU had a top 10 class of 2025. Now that the cycle is over, the Orange are barely in the top 40.
Right now, the class of 2026 is in a similar spot. Once again, a year before these players actually start school, the ‘Cuse have a top 10 class. ESPN even has Syracuse’s class as the 7th best in the country! However, like last year, expect those rankings to drop.
There are multiple reasons why. First off there’s the theories that players rankings decrease once they commit to a non-SEC school. While this isn’t officially confirmed, it’s definitely something to look out for if ‘Cuse commits start to drop for no reason.
The main reason, though, is that a majority of recruits are still deciding what schools they want to pick. Fran Brown has done a great job at finding loyal players who believe in him and commit early. But, SU only has three four-stars commits according to 247. Last season, not a single team in the top 20 of 247’s recruiting rankings had less than 10 four star commits. The highest ranked team with less than 10 was Georgia Tech at 21 with six. It just doesn’t seem realistic for the Orange to pick up seven more four stars for next years high school recruiting class. 12 of the top 20 teams last year were in the SEC. That’s just a different world of the sport. Brown has done great, but Syracuse won’t finish this high once the SEC has picked up its players.
