FB | Target audience: Syracuse’s move to ACC gives Orange stronger recruiting pitch in south

Darius Parson was alerted of Syracuse's move to the Atlantic Coast Conference when he was tagged in a Facebook post.

Parson was groggy the morning after his Woodbridge Senior (Va.) High School football team defeated Granby High School on Sept. 16. But once Parson — a verbal commitment to Syracuse for the Class of 2012 — noticed the new post on his wall about Syracuse possibly leaping from the Big East to the ACC, he was suddenly aware.

"And then I see it on SportsCenter, and I was like, ‘Alright, wow, that's cool,'" said Parson, who comes from Woodbridge, less than an hour from the University of Maryland. "A lot of schools that are from the ACC are around this area and in North Carolina, and that's cool for family getting to see me, come out and see me a little closer."

Syracuse's move to the ACC was formally announced on Sept. 18, one day after Parson found out about the speculative change in conference. Due to a waiting period imposed by the Big East on teams leaving the conference, Syracuse and Pittsburgh, who is also joining the ACC, will remain in the conference for 27 months before finally leaving the Big East in time for the 2014 college football season.

But the effects of the move to a more stable and competitive football conference may be seen sooner than that — on the recruiting trail. SU enters a conference that has a rich history of getting top prep talent. And in Scout.com's 2012 team recruiting rankings, five ACC schools are in the top 17.

Players all down the Atlantic coast, like Parson, will now need to take a closer look at SU.

"It's huge for Syracuse," said Mike Farrell, Big East, ACC and national college football recruiting analyst for Rivals.com. "It's a big, big jump."

The switch from the Big East to the ACC positions the Orange in a stronger football conference on the field and geographically. SU will be in a league that currently has four ranked teams in 2011, including three undefeated teams in Clemson, Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech.

Most ACC programs are south of Syracuse, with two in Florida, one in Georgia, four in North Carolina and two in Virginia — places that are hotbeds for high school talent. Suddenly, with the near-guarantee that beginning in 2014 SU will be playing at least one or two games a year in the south, the Orange's recruiting pitch has more charm.

"They can go in there and they can sell early playing time," Farrell said. "They can sell playing against schools that didn't offer you from that region. All of the things that they were sort of selling you before, with that added bonus of playing against teams from where you come from."

Syracuse has made inroads in recruiting in the south during its two-plus seasons under head coach Doug Marrone. The Orange has 13 scholarship players on its roster from Florida, and this year's freshman class features seven players from Florida, Georgia and Virginia combined. Seven of the 20 players who verbally committed to join the Orange next season are from a state with one of the 12 current ACC schools.

All of them are two- or three-star recruits on Rivals and Scout.com. Few received interest or offers from the ACC schools in their states.

For recruits, the chance to play against teams that overlooked them can be an advantageous selling point for the Orange.

"You always want to show those schools that didn't offer you what they're missing," Farrell said. "And this is a bigger opportunity, obviously, for kids who commit to Syracuse from the south to do that."

Parson received interest from Boston College, Duke, North Carolina State, Virginia and Virginia Tech, according to Rivals. But Syracuse was the only offer on the table.

He said playing in the ACC excites him most because of the connections he has to the teams near him. Parson knows players at Virginia and Virginia Tech. He's close friends with Cavaliers freshman Dominique Terrell, he said, although they have not yet discussed the prospects of playing each other in a few years.

The thoughts of playing in Death Valley against Clemson or at Florida State are also more enticing. Farrell said the Big East teams struggle with recruiting because none of the conference's matchups are that exciting.

"I actually thought about that a couple times," Parson said. "I might be playing against Clemson when I get up there, all these other teams, that would be cool. That would be awesome."

SU freshman linebacker Cameron Lynch had interest from Georgia Tech and Miami (Fla.) last year, but his only other Bowl Championship Series offer besides one from the Orange was from Vanderbilt. Lynch was Georgia's Defensive Player of the Year at the highest level, but his 5-foot-11 height may have caused many ACC and Southeastern Conference schools to be wary.

He's jumped right into the fire for SU, though, and is fifth on the team in tackles.

Now, the Orange schedule could feature a trip to Georgia Tech in 2014, and though Lynch didn't mention the aspect of proving a team wrong, the Lawrenceville, Ga., native said it would be a trip home — something to look forward to.

"Going back home is going to definitely raise an interest, but we're going to focus on the season now at hand," Lynch said. "So, it's going to be exciting most definitely."