Syracuse football ‘really’ liked by Nyair Graham, Duce Chestnut teammate
By Neil Adler
Nyair Graham, a 2022 three-star linebacker, has strong interest in Syracuse football, but other high-level contenders exist.
Syracuse football scored its first four-star prospect in the squad’s 2021 class, Duce Chestnut, at the beginning of August, and now the Orange has a legit chance to secure the services of his high-school teammate, elite 2022 linebacker Nyair Graham.
The 6-foot-1, 195-pound Graham is a three-star prospect in his cycle and has 16 scholarship offers to date, per a review of the primary recruiting Web sites.
Besides the ‘Cuse, those offers are from Boston College, Buffalo, Connecticut, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Miami (Fla.), Miami (Ohio), Michigan State, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Temple, Texas A&M, Virginia, Virginia Tech and West Virginia.
At this juncture, I’m not seeing any predictions by recruiting analysts as to where they think that Graham will end up going. He is a junior at Camden High School in Camden, N.J., where top-30 cornerback Chestnut is a senior.
Graham did recently speak with CuseNation.com’s Mike McAllister for an article in which the high-school player said that he “really likes” Syracuse football.
To that end, in addition to the Orange, McAllister writes that four other crews are “recruiting him hard,” and they are Penn State and Maryland out of the Big Ten Conference, as well as fellow Atlantic Coast Conference foes Boston College and Miami.
Syracuse football is in solid shape with 2022 three-star linebacker Nyair Graham, a high-school teammate of Orange 2021 commit Duce Chestnut.
The 247Sports Composite ranks Graham at No. 400 overall in the 2022 class, as well as No. 31 at outside linebacker and No. 11 in the state of New Jersey. Over at 247Sports, he is listed as the No. 35 outside linebacker and also the No. 11 prospect in New Jersey.
Rivals.com, meanwhile, places Graham as the No. 13 inside linebacker across the country in the 2022 recruiting cycle, and the No. 11 high-school player in New Jersey.
Although Syracuse football faces stiff competition for Graham, that he and Chestnut are close can’t hurt the Orange’s chances to acquire Graham’s skill-set and talent.
“Me and Duce been friends since we were seven, so we’re close. And him being at Cuse helps me a lot with interest. I get to learn more about them. He jokes around with me at practice too. He’ll be like ‘there go my future teammate’ and things like that,” Graham told McAllister.