Syracuse football loses two top recruiting targets to Penn State

Darn Nittany Lions...

While the Syracuse Orange and Penn State Nittany Lions are far from rivals on the football field anymore, we do end up involved in a lot of battles for recruits -- especially now that PSU’s also running an up=tempo offense.

Unfortunately, few of those battles are really going Syracuse’s way, as evidence by developments these past couple days.

On Friday, tight end prospect Judge Culpepper announced via Twitter that he was headed to PSU.

Judge, who’s the younger brother of current Orange QB Rex Culpepper, is a high three-star recruit and one Syracuse has been pursuing since Rex came aboard. The Nittany Lions just offered him this past January along with virtually every other power program (Alabama, Notre Dame, Michigan, etc.). At 6-foot-5 and 256 pounds, he’s a player that could’ve filled a similar role to what we expect from Ravian Pierce this season.

Just a day later, SU lost out on yet another quarterback target (this time to Penn State).

Levis is a three-star pro-style quarterback from Connecticut, who Syracuse had recently started going after harder for the class of 2018. He attended SU’s camp last month, and was one of the team’s two top targets at the position (along with Chance Amie, who ended up picking Houston). Levis also had offers from Ole Miss, North Carolina and Florida State, so competition was going to be stiff for the Orange. But he committed on the spot this weekend after receiving the offer at Penn State.

Not great news on either player, though it won’t put a damper on the current (high) potential of this 2018 class. Syracuse will continue its search for a quarterback, though options have already dwindled there.

Best of luck to both Culpepper and Levis at PSU, despite our obviously negative feelings about that program and university.