Syracuse Football loses Asil Mulbah to the Buffalo Bills
The Syracuse football squad just lost a key piece of their recruiting efforts to the NFL. ITLH breaks down what this means and who can replace.
Not this again! That’s probably the first thing Syracuse football fans are thinking reading the headline of this piece.
A few years ago SU fans had to witness their head coach Doug Marrone take his talents to the Buffalo Bills and now history is repeating itself, well sort of.
Asil Mulbah spent two seasons running recruiting operations as the director for Syracuse. He revealed his decision on his Instagram account:
"“Excited to announce that I have accepted a position in the Buffalo Bills Scouting Department,” Mulbah wrote on Instagram (via the Buffalo News). “I’d like to thank Coach Babers, the SU football staff, and the players for an amazing two seasons filled with memories I will cherish for the rest of my life.”"
From what we’ve heard it will be a position in the scouting department, although nothing has been officially specified by the team publicly.
So who is Mulbah? Well he’s a former collegiate athlete at Fordham who has spent the past couple of years working for Syracuse, Wake Forest, and Bowling Green.
This is significant on multiple fronts, but mainly because of how well SU has done on the recruiting trail as of late. According to 247 Sports, SU had a top-50 class in 2018, ninth best in the ACC, and that included multiple four star recruits.
That’s the best class SU has had in over a decade. While the recruiting hasn’t translated to wins (Dino Babers has had back-to-back 4-8 campaigns), it’s laying the groundwork and the foundation for future success.
Getting back to the genesis of this, can Syracuse survive losing their director of recruiting?
While they’re completely different cases, how did SU do after Marrone left? Not very good. Scott Shafer had three years and his lone year of success was milking off the team that Marrone built. While Babers hasn’t done anything of note in terms of overall wins and losses.
Marrone wasn’t perfect by any means. He had four years in Orange and was 25-25 overall with a couple of bowl appearances. Then he skipped town for the NFL.
Now getting back to our guy skipping town, it’s both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, the Bills recognized a talent so great that they wanted to hire him. That means SU was clearly on the right track. But on the other hand, SU lost a key recruiter who helped find premiere high school talent to bring into the fold.
The heir to the throne is Kramer Cook (Assistant Director of Recruiting). He joined the Orange back in 2016 as an assistant and was just promoted to his current role this year. It seems as though he’s going to receive another promotion, sooner rather than later.
He’s got a juicy resume of subsidiary roles that have built up to his current position:
- Cook graduated from Wisconsin-Eau Claire in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a minor in coaching. In addition, he holds two graduate degrees from Robert Morris, one in sport administration and the other in business administration, per Cuse.com.
- Spent time as a graduate assistant for Robert Morris University in Chicago. He also handled JUCO recruiting for the same University.
- He also went through the ringer at Coastal Carolina University as well in a variety of roles.
Next: Syracuse Football: Ranking every SU first round pick in NFL Draft history
While it always sucks losing talented guys to the pros, you’ve got to give Dino Babers credit for having another guy waiting in the wings. Nothing has been officially announced by the University, but that’s the expectation.