The day Scott Shafer was hired as SU’s defensive coordinator, he called Ursuline (Ohio) head coach Dan Reardon with a scholarship offer for Dale Peterman. The cornerback committed on Jan. 25. And on the night before signing day, Syracuse needed to talk Peterman into staying after Michigan swooped in with one last charge.

Another school tried to steal one of Doug Marrone’s recruits on signing day eve, but Marrone said that’s what’s fun about recruiting.

‘I was telling our coaches,’ Marrone said at his press conference Wednesday. ‘This is great, this is what you want. You want people to come back in on some of your recruits. It makes you feel better about your recruits and that you’ve gotten the right players.’

Hours after 14 commits officially signed letters of intent, Marrone could finally crack a smile and half-joke about the ones that almost got away. Despite Marrone’s optimism, the Orange’s recruiting class ranks 116th in the nation and features only two recruits above a two-star rating, according to Rivals.com.

Marrone didn’t base his recruiting on holes in the current roster. For about 28 minutes Wednesday, Marrone described how a pursuit for overall talent trumped position-filling.

‘A lot of times in recruiting, people talk about filling out needs and taking care of those needs with your recruiting class,’ Marrone said. ‘One of the things we wanted to do was make sure we went out and got the best players we could.’

And hang onto them at the eleventh hour.

Peterman, who set a school record with five non-offensive touchdowns at Ursuline, wasn’t the only recruit to nearly slip out of Marrone’s grasp. SU also prevented Florida State from getting an official visit from cornerback Phillip Thomas and the Orange ousted Rutgers.

That’s what excites Marrone. After managing to snatch multiple prospects that had committed or received offers from fellow Big East schools, Syracuse fended off late rallies.

‘I look at recruiting as another win-loss – it’s you against someone else. It’s a competitive situation and I do a better job of selling our program than a coach at another school.’

Recruits and their head coaches agree that Marrone’s staff was ultra-aggressive.

Zack Chibane, who was committed to South Florida before switching to Syracuse, was recruited by Derrick Jackson, a holdover from former head coach Greg Robinson’s staff. Chibane, a 6-foot-4, 285-pound offensive lineman from Paramus, N.J., said he was contacted immediately after when Jackson was retained by Marrone,

‘It was amazing how fast they recruited me after all the coaches were hired,’ Chibane said. ‘They were pretty aggressive. They made a lot of phone calls and made the in-home visits.’

Over his six months of plane rides and road trips, Marrone networked with as many high school coaches as he could. Whenever Marrone visited a recruit, he said that he’d also meet up with three other coaches at a diner.

‘We tried to use our time on the road to see how productive we could be,’ Marrone said. ‘From a standpoint of the senior prospects we were looking at and meeting a coach who might have a junior coming up the following year.’

Whereas Robinson tried to salvage all recruits he could from Paul Pasqualoni’s incoming group, Marrone rescinded three of his predecessor’s six commits and moved forward. Through his coordinator’s connections, the commit flips snowballed.

Defensive end Brandon Sharpe and safety Shamarko Thomas – teammates at Ocean Lakes (Va.) High School – both abandoned their commitments to Louisville for the Orange. Chibane switched from South Florida. American Heritage (Fla.) safety Rishard Anderson de-committed from Wake Forest. The cherry on top was when 6-foot-6, 360-pound lineman Andrew Tiller opted for Syracuse over Miami (Fla.) and Rutgers. Tiller is rated as the 10th-best prospect in New York State.

‘We were able to turn some commitments, we were able to fight some battles, and we really at the end of the day were holding onto our you-know-what with some of these recruits, because other teams came back in,’ Marrone said.

Now that signing day has passed, Marrone can finally interact with his team at SU on a regular basis. He became ‘uncomfortable’ away from them so long and is eager to set a tone, his imprint on the team.

One brief interaction arose recently when Marrone was cleaning out a locker next to one of his players.

‘I turned around to him and said, ‘Do you think you’ve done a good job,” Marrone recalled. ‘He said, ‘Coach, I think I did a pretty good job here.’ And I said, ‘Pretty good means you lost, 21-20.’ That’s one of the things we want to talk about. Pretty good, is not good enough.’

thdunne@syr.edu

Published on February 4, 2009 at 12:00 pm