Syracuse football in final 5 of 4-star defensive lineman, who sets decision date

Consensus four-star defensive lineman Ethan Utley from Tennessee, a top-200 national prospect in the 2025 class, has a final set of five contenders that includes Syracuse football.

The 6-foot-4, 270-pound Utley has plans to announce his college choice on March 28, which is his birthday, according to his X page and media reports.

Utley’s top five includes the Orange, Michigan, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas.

While that’s some steep competition for the ‘Cuse, and it may prove quite tough for SU to prevail, that Syracuse football has made the final five for Utley shows just how well head coach Fran Brown and his staff are faring on the recruiting trail.

Syracuse football is a finalist for 2025 four-star DL Ethan Utley.

Utley is a standout junior at The Ensworth School in Nashville, Tenn. Throughout his recruiting process, he has amassed more than 40 scholarship offers from a range of high-major programs, per his bio on Rivals.com.

On December 4 of last year, Utley said via his X page that he had received an offer from the Orange coaching staff. That was the same day that Brown, most recently the defensive backs coach at Georgia, was officially introduced by SU Athletics as the new head coach of the ‘Cuse, replacing Dino Babers.

Utley is an elite prospect in the 2025 class. All of the primary recruiting services rate him as four stars, in the top 200 nationally, in the top 20 at defensive lineman and in the top five within the state of Tennessee.

At the time of this writing, both the industry-generated 247Sports Composite and the industry-generated On3 Industry Ranking placed Utley inside the top 180 around the country in the junior cycle.

According to 247Sports, Utley has set an official visit to in-state Tennessee for June 14. Other visits are likely to come, as far as I can tell.

For Syracuse football to realistically have a shot here, Orange coaches have to get Utley on the SU campus for a visit, even if it’s after he verbally commits to one of his finalists in late March.

All of his finalists are strong programs. My sense is that the Volunteers could be considered the favorite, since it’s a home-state squad for Utley.

But even after he announces a verbal commitment, if other suitors, including the ‘Cuse, score visits from Utley, it’s possible one of them could flip him.

In a recent interview with 247Sports director of recruiting Steve Wiltfong, Utley had this to say about the Orange. “Syracuse is a perfect program for Coach (Fran) Brown to take over and with Coach E(lijah) Robinson alongside him they will be unstoppable and have great team camaraderie and a winning culture up there will grow quickly.”