Syracuse Football: 4-star, top-250 national prospects from Florida high on the Orange

Syracuse football coaches are making strong impressions on various highly ranked prospects hailing from the Sunshine State.

Not too long ago, for one, the Orange got on the board with its 2026 class when four-star athlete/defensive back and top-80 national prospect Demetres Samuel Jr. out of Heritage High School in Palm Bay, Fla., verbally committed to the 'Cuse.

Other four-star players from Florida, lately, are picking up scholarship offers from the Syracuse football staff and taking visits to the Hill.

In a recent piece, Rivals.com national analysts Adam Friedman and John Garcia Jr. noted that the Orange is among those suitors standing out to a pair of four-star sophomores, both rated in the top 250 overall in their class, who reside in the Sunshine State.

What impresses me about Syracuse football head coach Fran Brown and his assistants is that they continue to recruit New Jersey, New York, the Washington, D.C., market and the Philadephia region hard, given coaches' recruiting ties in these hotbeds.

At the same time, Orange coaches are making stellar recruiting inroads in numerous other states, such as Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas.

Two four-star prospects in the 2026 cycle appear to be high on Syracuse football.

Friedman and Garcia, in their recent article, discussed a variety of nationally ranked 2025 and 2026 players, including 2026 four-star linebacker Adam Balogoun-Ali and 2026 four-star defensive back Jaydin Broadnax.

Both of these talented prospects picked up scholarship offers from the 'Cuse in February of this year. The 6-foot-2, 215-pound Balogoun-Ali attends The Benjamin School in North Palm Beach, Fla.

The 6-foot-3, 181-pound Broadnax goes to West Boca Raton Community High School in Boca Raton, Fla. By the way, Broadnax and his West Boca teammate, 2026 four-star running back Javian Mallory (who also has an Orange offer in hand), recently took a visit to Syracuse football, according to social media posts.

While most high school sophomores likely have a way to go in their recruitments, the Rivals.com national analysts said that some programs sticking out to Balogoun-Ali early on include the 'Cuse, Miami and Florida.

For Broadnax, although it's early, he seems to be high on college squads such as the 'Cuse, Florida, Wisconsin, Louisville, Kentucky and Mississippi State, among others, according to the Rivals.com experts.

This is, naturally, encouraging for Syracuse football coaches. However, both Broadnax and Balogoun-Ali possess more than 20 offers at this juncture, with more likely to come, so the competition for the Orange to prevail for either target will prove steep.

Broadnax and Balogoun-Ali are elite high school sophomores. Balogoun-Ali's highest 2026 rankings come via On3, where he is No. 103 nationally, No. 11 at linebacker and No. 16 in Florida.

Broadnax, meanwhile, is ranked by Rivals.com at No. 205 nationally, No. 15 at safety and No. 40 in Florida.