Syracuse football one of 5 'front-runners' for 4-star Jeff Exinor Jr., analyst says

Four-star athlete/wide receiver Jeff Exinor Jr. from Maryland, rated in the top 250 nationally of the 2025 class by multiple recruiting services, is planning to officially visit Syracuse football in mid-June.

This week, a top national analyst discussed the recruitment of the 6-foot-2, 220-pound Exinor, saying that for the time being, there are five front-runners to land him, including the Orange.

Per Rivals.com, Exinor recently went on an unofficial visit to Big Ten Conference member Michigan State. Also according to Rivals.com, he has official visits planned, running from late May until late June, to the Spartans, Penn State, Maryland and Syracuse football. Additionally, per his X account, Exinor plans to officially visit Virginia Tech on April 12.

In a recent piece, Rivals.com national recruiting director Adam Gorney said that Exinor's recent trip to Michigan State went well. At this juncture, per Gorney, the five front-runners for Exinor are Penn State, Michigan State, Maryland, Virginia Tech and the 'Cuse.

Syracuse football is a big contender for 2025 four-star athlete/wide receiver Jeff Exinor Jr.

According to Rivals.com, Exinor is scheduled to officially visit the Orange during the weekend that begins on June 14. By the way, several other Syracuse football 2025 four-star targets are planning to take official visits to the Hill that weekend as well.

Exinor, a standout junior at the McDonogh School in Owings Mills, Md., was named by the Baltimore Sun to its All-Metro first team on offense for the 2023 season, when he caught 76 passes for 926 yards and 11 touchdowns, according to Exinor's bio on the MaxPreps Web site.

Throughout his recruiting process, he has amassed around 20 scholarship offers from schools such as Michigan State, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Boston College, Duke, Maryland, Michigan, Oregon, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Tennessee, Southern California, Virginia Tech, Howard and West Virginia, among others.

The new Orange staff, led by head coach Fran Brown, re-offered a scholarship to Exinor on December 12, 2023, according to his X page.

This past January, amid one of the team's junior days, Exinor was in Central New York on an unofficial visit to the Syracuse football program. Around that time, media reports indicated that his trip to the Hill went well.

For what it's worth, when I wrote this column, there were at least four predictions in Penn State's direction for Exinor on Rivals.com.

Both industry-generated rating systems, the 247Sports Composite and the On3 Industry Ranking, have him in the top 300 overall in the 2025 class. His highest national ranking currently comes from ESPN, at No. 158 in this cycle.