Syracuse football QB recruiting woes continue with Riley Leonard miss

Syracuse football made a huge push to land prized 2021 quarterback Riley Leonard, but the three-star prospect has opted to suit up for Duke.

Riley Leonard, the top target for Syracuse football as far as recruiting a 2021 quarterback goes, is heading to the Atlantic Coast Conference. But not to the Orange.

Leonard, a 6-foot-4, dual-threat quarterback who is rated as three stars by Rivals.com, revealed via Twitter that he will play collegiate football at Duke. This is a bummer for the ‘Cuse, which had seemingly gone all-in for Leonard and will have to regroup as it pertains to landing a quarterback in its 2021 recruiting cycle.

Tommy DeVito, Syracuse’s starting quarterback, is a redshirt junior, meaning that he would have overlapped with Leonard for only one stanza, assuming that the upcoming campaign isn’t cancelled due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

To that end, the Orange hasn’t fared as well as it would have liked in recruiting quarterbacks since getting DeVito a few years ago. As Syracuse.com’s Stephen Bailey noted in a tweet on Leonard’s decision, “Tough miss for an SU program that has struggled to recruit QBs since Tommy DeVito.”

In a review of ‘Cuse recruiting targets on the 247Sports Web site for both 2021 and 2022, under the “prospects” category, no quarterbacks are listed for each cycle.

However, Bailey wrote in a Syracuse.com article about Leonard that the “Orange has offered 15 total quarterbacks this cycle with Leonard becoming the ninth to pledge elsewhere.”

One would have to imagine that Syracuse coaches, after Leonard opted for the Blue Devils, may put out some more scholarship offers to other quarterbacks in either, or both, of those two classes.

Leonard, a two-sport star at Fairhope High School in Fairhope, Ala., who also excels in basketball, picked Duke over the Orange and offers from other squads including Nebraska, South Alabama, Southern Mississippi, Tulane and Vanderbilt.

In choosing the Blue Devils, Leonard told TheDevilsDen.com, “Duke was the school that for the rest of my life I could walk around with pride knowing I went there.”

Recently, Leonard had said in an interview with Syracuse.com that ‘Cuse coaches had told him that, “I’m No. 1 and that’s the truth. They told me I was their guy so that’s really important to me as a player.”

Important, perhaps, but not enough to have Leonard select the Orange. In any event, ‘Cuse guys will get to face Leonard down the road in ACC competition. Best of luck, Riley!