FB : SU revamps defensive line with recruits; kicker Norton could see immediate playing time
Doug Marrone singled out the defensive line in his opening statement.
He was excited that he and the Syracuse coaching staff addressed the needs of the football team. In particular, the defensive line.
‘It’s very difficult for us to bring in people with size,’ the Syracuse head coach said. ‘We’ve had issues with that, trying to find enough players in this area with size.
‘For us to have to go to junior college to get a player like Zian Jones or Markus (Pierce-Brewster), people who have been established, that have done a very good job, is going to help our football team.’
With the loss of both starting defensive ends — Mikhail Marinovich to graduation and Chandler Jones to the NFL Draft — Syracuse was left with glaring openings on the line. Staring them straight down, the Orange staff got out and recruited the line as hard as any position. Three defensive ends and two defensive tackles make up nearly a quarter of the 22 players in Syracuse’s national letter of intent signing class.
Two of them — Jones and Pierce-Brewster — came from junior colleges.
Jones, a 6-foot-5, 310-pound tackle, played for West Los Angeles Community College last season. Pierce-Brewster, a 6-foot-3, 230-pound end, played for the City College of San Francisco. Both may be called upon to contribute on the field in 2012.
‘Any time you lose some players like we lost on our football team, I think you’re looking for guys that potentially could come in and play for you,’ recruiting coordinator and offensive line coach Greg Adkins said.
City College of San Francisco head coach George Rush expects Pierce-Brewster to pay immediate dividends for his new school. Rush said he would be shocked if he didn’t make plays this fall.
Pierce-Brewster had about 20 schools courting him, Rush said, including Kansas, Kansas State, Oregon State and Mississippi. He chose Syracuse on Tuesday, the day before signing day.
‘I think he felt real good about the guy that recruited him, coach Adkins,’ Rush said. ‘And secondly, I think he’s very impressed with the academic reputation of the school.’
Though Adkins helped to recruit the two junior college linemen from California, Syracuse managed to bring in a former Pittsburgh commitment at defensive end.
Myles Hilliard is 6 feet 5 inches, 250 pounds and only 17 years old.
He flipped to SU in part because of the coaching change at Pittsburgh and is nearly the same size as the 6-foot-5, 265-pound Chandler Jones. Hilliard will be a candidate to replace him.
‘I think he’s a kid who we continued to look at throughout the process, and as things changed for him we were kind of there for him,’ Adkins said. ‘And certainly we enjoyed having him in on a weekend, and he made the decision of what was best for him.’
Hilliard said he didn’t talk with the coaches about playing time, although he did say the thought of early playing time does excite him. He said he developed a strong relationship with his primary recruiters, Marrone and defensive ends coach Tim Daoust.
And he’ll be one of a large batch of defensive linemen who increase competition for some open spots this August.
Said Hilliard: ‘I feel like Syracuse could really be a great place to grow up and spread my wings.’
Recruit Norton expected to handle kickoffs this fall
Time after time, Ross Krautman’s struggles only added to the frustration. A kickoff out of bounds, an inability to reach the goal line, another kickoff out of bounds.
It all added to the frustration of five consecutive losses and a 5-7 finish for Syracuse.
Not surprisingly, head coach Doug Marrone and his staff addressed this inability in the offseason. And it didn’t take long for him to explain that one starting spot was likely already cemented.
‘If you said, ‘Which player do you think will come in here and have an immediate impact?’ I would say Ryan Norton, the kicker,’ Marrone said. ‘I think he’s going to be the kickoff guy. We’ve seen that on film.
‘All he has to do is what he’s been doing his entire life, which is kicking the ball into the end zone. When you talk about immediate impact and what it’s going to do for you statistically, that’s a big difference. That was a major decision that we had to make going through this process.’
Norton is a 5-foot-11, 170-pound kicker from Garden City. He was a 2011 All-State Second Team selection after connecting on 50-of-52 extra points and converting better than 50 percent of his field goals. His long on the season was 49 yards.
For his career, Norton made 13-of-18 field goals and holds the Nassau County record for most points in a game (nine) by a kicker in a county playoff game.
Published on February 1, 2012 at 12:00 pm
