Syracuse athletics gets positive news during slow summer

battle
Battle committed to Syracuse
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Tyus Battle reopened his recruitment after spurning Syracuse in May

These are supposed to be the dog days of summer. Sure, college football news is heating up, and basketball news never stops in Syracuse. But realistically, I didn’t expect two program changing pieces of news to ripple through the Syracuse airwaves in the last few days.

I’ll start with the most immediate and arguably the most important news—the hiring of a new athletic director. Mark Coyle was introduced at Syracuse yesterday, and brings with him high expectations.

The second piece of news is a bit unexpected, and also important to SU. Highly ranked Class of 2016 recruit Tyus Battle, who had committed to Michigan, re-opened his recruitment, and Syracuse now appears to be back in the mix.

With that being said, I want to start with this Battle news and then get back to Coyle.

» Related: Three takeaways from Syracuse athletic director Mark Coyle’s introduction

Now, I’m not a recruiting insider and I certainly can’t read into the mind of a high schooler. It’s also hard to read too much and get too up or down regarding recruits and commits. I will say this, though—since the sanctions hit Cuse in the last year, SU hasn’t picked up any new commits.

This isn’t extremely startling…but I know as a fan, I’d feel better if the Class of 2016 had more than one recruit coming in. Obviously there is still time. But Battle would be a huge get. I know it doesn’t mean he’d be great, or Cuse would be great, or really anything at this point. But again, as a fan, it’d bring some more excitement to the program.

Now, on to Coyle. By now, we all know what Dr. Gross gave SU during his tenure as AD—success in non-revenue sports, increased exposure for the revenue sports, etc…etc. Now Coyle comes in. Dealing with the sanctions is important, but I also hope he establishes a program that won’t run into issues of that sort in the future. I know no program is perfect, and today’s world of college athletics is a jungle. But he’ll be tasked with cleaning up and maintaining the integrity and success of athletics at SU.

As Coyle said in his introduction, the block ‘S’ logo of Syracuse is a strong, recognizable brand, especially considering SU is not a state school. As long as SU can keep being SU (add some winning for the football program in there), then the latest news will only help the program in the present and future.

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About Rachel Marcus 68 Articles
Rachel is currently a Digital Production Assistant at ESPN. She has previously interned at SportsNet New York and has contributed to Dime Magazine and covered beats ranging from Big East basketball to men’s soccer for The Daily Orange. She is originally from Maryland. Follow her on Twitter @rachelnmarcus.