The Syracuse football squad got some much needed reinforcements in their secondary. ITLH breaks down the latest acquisition for #OITNF.
Defensive Back Andre Cisco has committed to Syracuse football.
The Syracuse Orange football team picked up their first commitment after about a 4-month hiatus. Syracuse last received a huge verbal from 4-star OT Qadir White, right before the beginning of the season. White pledged to Syracuse back in late August, before the start of the Orange’s season.
While Cisco is a defensive back, from Long Island New York. He attends IMG Academy in Florida, and plays on the same team as Syracuse linebacker commit, Juan Wallace. Cisco is about 6-foot and weighs 187-pounds.
He brings solid size to the Syracuse defensive backfield, joining other DB commits Cam Jonas and Trill Williams. All three DB commits stand over 6-feet tall. In the past Syracuse have started players in the secondary that simply did not have the size to compete in the ACC.
While Cisco also received offers from the likes of Nebraska, Northwestern, and Vanderbilt.
https://twitter.com/OCHOClSCO/status/939298590480044032
The 3-star prospect is rated the 962nd best prospect in the country, and the 73rd best safety in the nation, according to 247sports. Cisco is a fairly big time prospect and with his commitment Syracuse now has the 41st best recruiting class in the country, good for 8th in the ACC. With only 15 commitments total in the class, and the likelihood for an additional six or seven scholarships open, Syracuse could bring in their best recruiting class in years.
Let’s look at the film:
While from the get-go you can tell that Cisco likes to lay the boom. In the very first highlight he puts a nice clean hit on a wide receiver. But the hit I was more impressed with occurred at the :45 mark on the tape.
While the opposing team finds a wide open receiver, who has a lot of space on the sideline, but Cisco comes out of nowhere and trucks him out-of-bounds. While this was a nice hit, I was more impressed with the angle that Cisco took to make the hit. This year Syracuse safeties were sometimes burned because they would take poor angles, and get swallowed up in the linebacker level on run plays. As a safety it is important to take a good angle, and stay back to make sure you complete the tackle.
Almost ‘Ed Reed-ish’ in his center field abilities…
While unlike many of Syracuse’s recent safeties, Cisco plays a great “center field” as a safety. He provides great help to corners over the top. At the 1:00 mark of the tape, Cisco displays these great skills. The IMG corner forces the receiver to the middle of the field Cisco does a nice job of reading the quarterback’s eyes, and lays the boom on the receiver trying to make the catch. Cisco’s pass defense will be a huge upgrade for Syracuse’s safeties unit. He does a nice job covering receivers, and I could see him ending up as the nickel corner on third downs.
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Cisco has great closing speed, and because of that quick speed, he excels at stopping the run. At the 2:21 mark of the highlight, Cisco shows off the run defense on consecutive plays. In the first play, Cisco recognizes the triple option run play, and properly picks up the running back, leaving the defensive end to cover the quarterback. As soon as the quarterback pitches the ball to the running back, Cisco makes a nice sound tackle bringing the running back down. In the next play, Cisco lets the defensive end properly pick up the running back, the Long Island native takes the quarterback, and cuts him off to make a nice open field tackle.