Syracuse Football: Pre-season All-America honors pile up for Sean Tucker

Star running back Sean Tucker, who broke the single-season rushing mark for Syracuse football in the 2021 campaign, is garnering a sizable amount of pre-season All-America buzz ahead of the 2022 term.

Earlier this week, the Walter Camp Football Foundation disclosed its 2022 pre-season All-America teams, and Tucker got placed on the second squad, along with Michigan running back Blake Corum.

On the pre-season All-America first team at Tucker’s position, per Walter Camp, are Texas running back Bijan Robinson and Ohio State running back TreVeyon Henderson.

As we noted in another recent column, in 2021 Tucker collected more rushing yards than both Robinson and Henderson. Still, getting named to the second group is a really nice honor for Sean Tucker.

Let’s look at other 2022 pre-season accolades for Syracuse football RB Sean Tucker.

Tucker recently was named to the pre-season All-America third team for the 2022 stanza by the well-respected Phil Steele publication, according to an announcement from SU Athletics.

Tucker is also on the 2022 pre-season All-ACC first unit from Phil Steele, along with the pre-season All-ACC first team from national media outlet Athlon Sports.

Not too long ago, 247Sports rated its 25 best running backs nationwide prior to the 2022 term kicking off, and Tucker checked in at No. 5 on this list.

Personally, I don’t think there are four other running backs in the country who are better than Sean Tucker, however, for him to get more respect on a national scale, Syracuse football needs to improve its record on the field this coming season.

Famed NFL Draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. of ESPN recently situated Tucker at No. 8 among running backs in his early positional rankings for the 2023 NFL Draft.

In the last campaign, when the Orange went 5-7 overall and missed out on a post-season bowl berth, Tucker rushed for 1,496 yards and scored 12 touchdowns on the ground.

His total rushing yards in a single season eclipsed the previous ‘Cuse record held by the legendary Joe Morris, who produced 1,372 rushing yards in 1979.

For his efforts last year, Tucker was on the All-ACC first team and also made several All-America groups in 2021.