Syracuse Football: 5-star edge, 4-star wide receiver head to Southeastern Conference

Syracuse football first-year head coach Fran Brown and his top-flight staff inked a talented and large 2025 class on Wednesday at the start of the early signing period for high school seniors, although two recruits from the Sunshine State have opted for Southeastern Conference schools.

Javion Hilson, a 2025 five-star edge and a top-20 national prospect according to Rivals.com, has committed to SEC member Missouri. The 6-foot-5, 245-pound Hilson took an official visit to the Hill in early November, and media reports indicated that his trip to Central New York went quite well and that the Orange staff was fighting hard for the standout at Cocoa High School in Cocoa, Fla.

Fellow SEC team Ole Miss has landed a pledge from 2025 four-star wide receiver and top-100 national prospect Winston Watkins Jr. of Venice High School in Venice, Fla. The 5-foot-10, 172-pound Watkins, in late March of this year, took an unofficial visit to the 'Cuse and said in a recent interview that he had hoped to officially visit Syracuse football, but that unfortunately never transpired.

Naturally, I'm wishing Javion and Winston all the best moving forward when they head to the SEC in the future. They both held scholarship offers from the Orange coaching staff.

Syracuse football didn't prevail for a five-star edge and a four-star wide receiver in the 2025 cycle.

Hilson, who had previously given verbal commitments to Alabama and then Florida State, had a tough to gauge recruiting process, national analysts have said. For a long period of time, another SEC group, Texas, was rumored as the leader for Hilson, with other suitors heavily in the mix such as Texas A&M, Pittsburgh and the Orange.

Toward the end of November, he took official visits to Michigan and, most recently, to Missouri. In recent days, leading up to the beginning of the early signing period on December 4, Missouri had some analyst buzz for Hilson, and the Tigers ultimately prevailed for him.

Watkins, not too long ago, revealed a a top eight of the Orange, Colorado, Alabama, Penn State, Indiana, Ole Miss, South Carolina and Georgia. For a few months, the Rebels had some analyst buzz in his recruitment, and Watkins, from late May to late June, went on official visits to Indiana, Ole Miss and South Carolina.

Watkins, who previously was a Texas A&M and then a Colorado verbal commit, recently told recruiting analyst Ryan Wright in a story on si.com, "With Syracuse, I have been talking to their receivers’ coach, coach (Ross) Douglas. We had a really good connection in the spring. I was talking to him a lot. As the summer and season went on, I never got a chance to get up there on an official visit, but I really wanted to go back up there on an official visit. We could never get our schedule together to get me back up there again. They have kept in contact with me as the season has gone on."

For the Orange, there really wasn't any drama with its 2025 class on Wednesday, in terms of 'Cuse verbal commits flipping to other schools. Darius Johnson, a 2025 three-star wide receiver out of Miami Northwestern Senior High School, did flip from Troy to the Orange after recently going on an official visit to Central New York.

Brown and his assistants are trending for the largest 2025 cycle around the country, at least during the early signing period, in a class that currently resides inside the top 40 nationally, per the industry-generated 247Sports Composite and Rivals.com.