The Syracuse football program completed its third national letter of intent signing day under head coach Doug Marrone Wednesday. Marrone and his assistant coaches got 27 recruits to commit to the Orange. Here are some of the highlights of Marrone's post-signing day press conference. (To read the full transcript visit SUAthletics.com.)
"Our goal going into this season with this recruiting class, which I think is important, is speed first," said Marrone. "That’s the number one thing I wanted to bring into our program. The second thing that we were looking for was we wanted a bigger team. We wanted to get more range in the athletes that we were bringing in. We think we accomplished that with the height and weight of a lot of the players we’ve brought in. Our class represents great character with a high quality of academics. It’s interesting, we can talk about the players on the field, but the thing I’m most proud of is that we’re bringing in three student-athletes who are going to be enrolling in our engineering school. I think that speaks a lot about the type of players that we’re bringing into this program."
What are the strong points of the incoming class:
"The thing I do like about this class is the range of players. The one thing you look at is the offensive line, well there are three of those players who can play on the defensive line and on defense. You look at our defensive backs: multiple position players. They played wide receiver. People would ask me if (certain players) were a wide receiver or a DB. They’re returners. We have those type of players in our program because we are about developing those players."
Did the New Era Pinstripe Bowl victory help in recruiting:
"I think the Bowl Game and us winning, I’d be naïve to think that it didn’t help us with the momentum heading into the recruiting season and I think at the end of the day, the character of the player held that commitment. But I’m sure the win in the Bowl Game gave teams less ammunition to attack our program."
On if any of the new recruits will have an immediate impact:
"I think that’s very difficult to do. None of them have played at this level. To give you some insight, we had a team meeting the other day and I told the players that our season will be dictated by the players who were in that room. We welcome the other players who are coming into our program and we believe they’ll do a lot to help us and some of them may be able to help us as true freshmen."