Syracuse Football: New 5-star recruits score All-America honors for stellar seasons

Syracuse football coaches, in recent days, offered scholarships to a pair of five-star defensive backs in the 2025 class, both of whom just picked up All-America honors from MaxPreps.

Faheem Delane, the country’s No. 1 safety in the 2025 class and a top-25 national prospect from the Washington, D.C., area, was offered by the Orange on December 16, according to his X page.

Three days later, on December 19, the ‘Cuse coaching staff offered consensus top-10 national prospect Na’eem Offord, the top-ranked cornerback in this cycle who hails from Alabama. He noted the Orange offer via his X account.

This week, MaxPreps disclosed its junior All-America teams for the 2023 season, per an article from national football editor Zack Poff. Both Delane and Offord reside on the first squad.

Syracuse football recently offered two 5-star defensive backs in the 2025 class.

The 6-foot-2, 193-pound Delane is a junior at Good Counsel High School in Olney, Md., while the 6-foot-1, 185-pound Offord is a junior at Parker High School in Birmingham, Ala.

By the way, if you’d like to check out their impressive statistics for the 2023 campaign, they’re available via the MaxPreps Web site.

The day before Delane disclosed his scholarship offer from the Orange, he revealed via his X page his current top five of Alabama, LSU, Ohio State, Tennessee and Virginia Tech.

According to 247Sports, he has amassed more than two dozen offers from a range of high-major programs. When I wrote this story, the industry-generated 247Sports Composite placed Delane as five stars, No. 24 overall, No. 1 at safety and No. 1 in Maryland within the junior cycle.

Offord, meanwhile, has picked up more than 40 offers, per his bio on the 247Sports Web site. Those offers include teams such as Alabama, Clemson, Florida State, Georgia, Miami, Michigan, Ohio State, Oregon, Penn State, Southern California, Tennessee, Texas and many others.

As I mentioned earlier, all of the primary recruiting Web sites rate Offord in the top 10 nationwide. He’s also either the No. 1 or the No. 2 cornerback, and the No. 1 or No. 2 prospect coming out of Alabama.

At the time of this writing, the 247Sports Composite ranked Offord as five stars, No. 5 nationwide, No. 1 at cornerback and No. 1 in Alabama.

I understand if some Syracuse football fans roll their eyes when they see Orange coaches offer these top-flight prospects, but I don’t agree with that sort of sentiment.

For one, in fewer than three weeks, new ‘Cuse head coach Fran Brown and his staff have created an undeniable buzz surrounding the program.

What’s more, Brown and his assistants have hauled in a more than solid 2024 class, consisting of high school recruits and college transfers.

Finally, what’s wrong with aiming big? As I always opine, you can’t prevail for a highly ranked prospect unless you offer him a scholarship first. I like seeing Brown & Co. taking shots at five-star talents.