Syracuse Football: Senior Bowl loves Alton Robinson, Kendall Coleman

Executive Director of the Senior Bowl Jim Nagy shared some of his 2020 targets. Here’s why Kendall Coleman, Alton Robinson made the list and what’s next.

The Syracuse football squad has been in the news recently for all the right reasons:

• Tommy DeVito Heisman buzz.
• Experts considering Syracuse for the 2019-20 College Football Playoff.
• Winning double-digit games again in 2019.

It’s natural to have some optimism coming off of the best year since 2001. Speaking of there’s more good news to share.

The Orange have arguably the best pass rushing duo in all of college football returning with Kendall Coleman and Alton Robinson at the helm. Both are seniors and both registered 10 sacks last season.

Not only did the pair help Syracuse win a bunch of games last year, but they also increased their own popularity around college football. So much so in fact that the Executive Director of the Senior Bowl Jim Nagy has both of their names circled on his big board. He joined Boy Green on The Jets Zone recently to share his take:

On Alton Robinson

"“Alton is a really interesting player. There was a bunch of really good edge players in this past year’s NFL Draft and Alton is at the top of our board heading into 2020. He’s long and he has pass rush production. To me that’s one big thing, pass rush production does carry over from college to the pros. Everyone wants those guys who can get after the quarterback. When you put on the tape, Alton is a twitchy athlete and he knows how to rush the quarterback. Some guys are just athletic and don’t know what they’re doing, Alton seems to have a pretty good feel as a rusher. He’s really a guy we’re interested in and we’re excited to watch his progress.”"

Interestingly enough the perception of the two Syracuse defenders has been quite different according to experts. Despite having the same production last season (10 sacks), Alton has been viewed more favorably by scouts than Kendall.

Jim Nagy on social media has been sharing screenshots of some of the players on his board that the Senior Bowl is considering. When Alton was included and Kendall wasn’t, it seemed to continue to feed that narrative of Kendall being overlooked.

So Boy Green asked why that seems to be the case?

On Kendall Coleman

"“Yeah I mean Kendall is definitely there. When I post the stuff on social media I try to include as many schools as I can in that one little screenshot so it’s not like we haven’t evaluated him. He’s on the board as well. We’re just trying to get an idea right now off of junior tape, you never want to dig in too hard on these guys. We watch three or four games of junior tape to get an idea on these guys and then we try to let the senior year speak for itself. You always have to give an opportunity for a player to get better. They’re getting coached up, getting bigger and stronger in the offseason. Kendall Coleman is definitely on our radar but it’s going to be a crowded group. That position group is going to be really competitive.”"

Speaking of the Senior Bowl, a lot of Syracuse fans were pretty upset this past season when star quarterback Eric Dungey was snubbed. So they decided to light up Jim Nagy on Twitter and share their thoughts.

So Nagy wanted to clear the air on Eric Dungey, the Senior Bowl, and why they decided not to bring him in:

"“There were several Syracuse guys we had our eyes on. We (Senior Bowl staff) attended the SU vs Wake game live and I know there were some Syracuse fans who got after me and us on Twitter because we didn’t bring in Eric Dungey to the Senior Bowl. We really liked the eight quarterbacks we brought in last year. Eric was obviously a gamer and did a lot of great things for that program, but again we’re trying to bring players in who the 32 teams want to see. So it’s not like we didn’t take our time evaluating Syracuse last year. So there just wasn’t guys on SU that were at the top of their position group that made the cut for us.”"

The eight quarterbacks Nagy and his staff decided to invite are as follows:

• Ryan Finley, NC State
• Daniel Jones, Duke
• Drew Lock, Missouri
• Trace McSorley, Penn State
• Will Grier, West Virginia
• Tyree Jackson, Buffalo
• Gardner Minshew, Washington State
• Jarrett Stidham, Auburn

Every quarterback they invited except Tyree Jackson ended up being selected in the 2019 NFL Draft. Hard to argue with the results. Jim Nagy just completed his first year as the Executive Director of the Senior Bowl