Syracuse received national letters of intent from 17 players in the Class of 2019 on early national signing day Wednesday. The most touching commitment came from Cooper Dawson, an offensive lineman from Hanahan (South Carolina) High School.

Dawson sat at a table with his friend Kingsley Feinman, who has cerebral palsy.

“He’s taught me the only disability is a bad attitude,” Dawson said of Feinman. Then he whispered in Feinman’s ear where he was going.

“He’s going to Syracuse,” Feinman said and the two donned orange baseball caps, each adorned with a blue block “S.”

“Very gracious, very humbling,” head coach Dino Babers said of Dawson’s commitment method.

Headlining the class are two linebackers, Lee Kpogba and Mikel Jones, who will join a position group graduating three starting seniors. Babers was mum on the possibility of the pair, or other newcomers, playing early and often at his signing day press conference.

“Whether we have an Andre Cisco, an Andre Szmyt,” Babers said, “a guy who can stand out on the football field in 2019, we’ll see.”

Of the 17 signees, three are linebackers, three are defensive linemen, four are defensive backs, four more are offensive linemen, one tight end, one running back and one athlete, according to 247sports. Unusually, there was no quarterback — it’s common to try and sign one a year, for depth, if nothing else.

Babers, when asked about the lack of a QB signee, bluntly stated that there weren’t any quarterbacks SU was particularly interested in. With Tommy DeVito set to take the reins of the offense and Chance Amie waiting, the Orange are in a decent spot at the position.

“If we find one that we feel is worthy,” Babers said, “we’ll bring that one in. We just don’t want to force the issue.”

More than any single position, Babers has been trying to build depth — SU’s staff handed out the second most scholarship offers of a Division I program with 437 (Tennessee shelled out 440).

Balancing the board, as Babers called it, means taking the right number of recruits the next two years to balance out scholarships, thus creating a set number of players, and scholarships to give out, for each year.

All season, Babers talked about a need for depth and that SU’s starters were as good as any team, but the second and third strings needed to catch up. That way, whether it is injury or poor play, holes can’t develop mid-season. Even with the 17 new signees, he says it’s still a work in progress.

“(We’re) not as deep as we need to be to do the thing we want to do, nationally,” Babers said.

Babers and his staff dipped into familiar territory in building this class, nabbing Jones, a four-star linebacker from IMG Academy (Florida), where Andre Cisco, Juan Wallace, Kevin Johnson Jr. and K.K. Hahn all played.

SU also forayed into Canada, adding two signees — offensive lineman Matthew Bergeron and linebacker Geoff Cantin — from Quebec City, Quebec.

As of Wednesday, Babers indicated that SU has approximately five scholarships remaining, depending on how they’re given out.

Whether those scholarships will be used on transfers or more freshmen is unclear. Babers himself doesn’t know who specifically SU might use those offers on, but he said SU will be back out on the trail to get those offers out before the next signing day in February.

Published on December 19, 2018 at 5:41 pm

Contact Andrew: aegraham@syr.edu | @A_E_Graham