Syracuse Football: National analyst loves upside of 2025 3-star commit Jaylen Pray

A top national analyst recently dished on the upside of Syracuse football 2025 three-star pledge Jaylen Pray.

The 6-foot-7, 265-pound Pray is a talented, fast-rising defensive end/athlete in the high school junior cycle. He verbally committed to the Orange in late March.

Pray attends the Brunswick School in Greenwich, Conn. Recruiting services state that in addition to a scholarship offer from the 'Cuse, he held an offer from fellow Atlantic Coast Conference member Boston College.

Both the industry-generated 247Sports Composite and the industry-generated On3 Industry Ranking had Pray in the top 800 around the country within the 2025 class when I wrote this article. He's also deemed as a top-10 prospect coming out of Connecticut in his cycle.

Syracuse football 2025 three-star commit Jaylen Pray has a lot of promise and potential, an expert says.

Not too long ago, Rivals.com national analyst Adam Friedman was on hand at a multi-day event where college coaches and scouts could check out high school prospects from throughout the Northeast.

On one of those days, Connecticut programs were in the spotlight, and Friedman had this to say about Pray: Syracuse football "took a commitment from Pray back in March but not much was known about his game on the field. During his work out on Monday, the former basketball standout showed he has the requisite combination of size, strength, and coordination to justify a coach taking a shot on him. Pray hasn’t played much football so the learning curve will be steep but, thanks to his athletic profile, the pay off could be immense."

To date, 'Cuse head coach Fran Brown and his top-flight staff have secured at least 19 verbal commitments in their 2025 cycle, a class that when I penned this column ranked in the top 10 nationwide per the 247Sports Composite and Rivals.com.

With their recruiting efforts in this class and other cycles, Brown and his assistants have continued to focus on traditional hotbeds such as New Jersey, New York, the Washington, D.C., region, the Philadelphia market, and the rest of the Northeast corridor.

By extension, other states that the Syracuse football staff is recruiting hard include Florida, Ohio, Georgia, Texas and Tennessee, among others.