Stone Saunders from Pennsylvania, a 2025 four-star quarterback who holds a Syracuse football scholarship offer, recently disclosed a top five on Twitter.
The Orange didn’t make the cut. Saunders’ top five consist of two-time defending national champion Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Nebraska and fellow Atlantic Coast Conference squad Miami.
The Syracuse football coaching staff offered the 6-foot-2, 210-pound Saunders in April of 2022. Throughout his recruiting process, the rising junior All-American has amassed more than two-dozen offers from a range of high-major programs.
Blessed! Where’s home? @Hayesfawcett3 pic.twitter.com/A31PZAqrZi
— Stone Saunders (@Stone_Saunders8) June 27, 2023
I’m bummed that the ‘Cuse isn’t in the running for Saunders, although if I’m being candid, I didn’t get the sense that the Orange was ever really a significant contender for him.
Syracuse football isn’t in the top five of 2025 four-star quarterback Stone Saunders.
When I penned this column, I counted at least three predictions in the direction of Kentucky for Saunders between the 247Sports Web site, Rivals.com and the On3 Web site. He is a standout at Bishop McDevitt High School in Harrisburg, Pa.
All of the primary recruiting services rate Saunders as a top-30 quarterback across the country in the 2025 cycle.
Besides the ‘Cuse, his offer sheet has included Iowa, Miami, Georgia, Duke, Kentucky, West Virginia, Rutgers, Michigan, Texas A&M, Wisconsin, Colorado, Maryland, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Virginia Tech, Boston College, Louisville, Cincinnati, Nebraska, UConn and Toledo, among others.
In his freshman and sophomore seasons at Bishop McDevitt, Saunders received All-America honors from MaxPreps. In those two terms, collectively, Saunders threw for more than 6,600 passing yards and 100 touchdowns, against just 10 interceptions.
As a sophomore in the 2022 stanza, he helped lead Bishop McDevitt to a 13-1 overall record and the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (“PIAA”) Class 4A championship. This past season, Saunders tallied 3,583 passing yards and 54 touchdowns with only five interceptions. He was named to the 2022 MaxPreps sophomore All-America first team.
On a national scale within the 2025 class, Saunders is rated as high as No. 203 overall, according to ESPN, which also places him as the No. 12 quarterback in this cycle.
At the time of this writing, both of the industry-generated ranking systems, the 247Sports Composite and the On3 Industry Ranking, had Saunders in the top 350 nationally, the top 25 at his position, and the top eight in Pennsylvania.
According to the 247Sports Web site, Syracuse football coaches have offered scholarships to several other quarterbacks in the 2025 class. In the 2024 cycle, the Orange recently picked up a verbal commitment from four-star, top-15 quarterback Jakhari Williams out of the First Presbyterian Day School in Macon, Ga.