WildcatReport - Ohio QB Brendan Zurbrugg flips from Syracuse to Northwestern
In a stunning turn, Brendan Zurbrugg committed to Northwestern on Monday, eight days after committing to the Orange.
northwestern.rivals.com
STUNNER: QB Brendan Zurbrugg flips from Syracuse to NU
- Thread starter lou v
- Start date
northwestern.rivals.com
Top notch work by Fitz to snag this guy from fierce competitors like Liberty and Toledo.
Toledo and Liberty played each other in a bowl game last year. You remember those. Of course, we should always win such recruiting battles, but let's never forget how truly bad the last 2 years were.
This kid is a good prospect. Maybe if you actually bothered to watch the hudl tapes, you could actually form an independent opinion.
He may be a good prospect, but most of us don't claim to be able to determine that by watching his highlight tapes!
Rivals and ESPN don't have him rated.
24/7 has him rated 85, a three star capable of starting for a Power 5 team.
He had a lot of offers, including Yale and Dartmouth, so that speaks to the academics, but only Syracuse and NU from the Power 5. Many offers from MAC teams.
I'm just not too keen on guys who "commit" and then renege 8 days later. Of course, if Syracuse lied to him about recruiting another QB, thats totally different.
I can imagine Fitz imploring the QB prospects to commit to whatever scheme they're deploying and Zurbrugg saying "I'll commit for a week coach - if it doesn't work, I'm out."
He appears to be the type of QB that’s good enough for bottom-tier FBS programs to consider.
I’m just happy NU is no longer pretending to honor commitments to other programs.
I’m just happy NU is no longer pretending to honor commitments to other programs.
The kid was unrated by all the services 10 days ago. Why? Because none of their so called experts had actually watched him play. The ratings you are referencing are default ratings these online services give out like candy anytime a prospect commits to a P5 University who they have no clue about, which is fairly often. So relying on these rankings to give you any sense of how good the kid is, is like the blind leading the blind. The reason for the flip from Syracuse is pretty clear. He was under the impression, whether justified or not, that he was going to be the only QB in their class. A pretty common expectation for QB recruits these days. Syracuse took another QB commit this past Sunday and he flipped his commitment on Monday. It does not take a rocket scientist to connect the dots.
Hey @corbi what happened to your premium subscription? Miss your insights on the Rock.
I connected the dots without any difficulty.
I'm not saying anything about how good Zurbrugg is or isn't.
I just view the word "commitment" very differently.
You commit? You follow thru. Unless you were misled.
I realize that many people don't think that way. Not my problem!
But I say this is a strong indication of a guy who will bail on NU if he plays well.
And I'd question the player's decision-making in that he chose Syracuse over Northwestern. Nothing at Syracuse is better than Northwestern... including the weather. Quarterbacks need to make good decisions...
(And be willing to compete for the starting job)
Hopefully there was more to the story.
I feel the same way about the word commitment. I don’t like when kids give their word and go back on it but I like it even less when coaches do the same. Commitment is a two way street. I was surprised that this kid committed to Syracuse before having a chance to visit NU but this had all the markings of a situation where he was pressured to commit on his visit and then had insult added to injury when Syracuse took a commitment from a 2nd QB a week later. Fairly confident he would still be committed to Syracuse had they not accepted a commit from a 2nd QB. Because of that I am also fairly confident we don’t have to worry about this kid decommitting from NU if other offers get made. We’ll see.
Last edited:
They literally haven’t for over a decade.
I visited Syracuse in early March on two occasions. The weather would best be described as dismal-cold, overcast with snow or sleet likely.
The hotel we stayed at was sold out, filled with kids in bathing suits running around. I learned that the busy season at the hotel was winter weekends because they had a large indoor water park that served as a winter vacation for nearby families.
The Carrier Dome was home to Syracuse football, basketball and lacrosse. It sat on a hill, like an emerging mushroom
Syracuse ,however, is a good university, ranking #62, with many excellent departments, including journalism. Their athletic programs are usually very good with basketball and lacrosse being strong
The hotel we stayed at was sold out, filled with kids in bathing suits running around. I learned that the busy season at the hotel was winter weekends because they had a large indoor water park that served as a winter vacation for nearby families.
The Carrier Dome was home to Syracuse football, basketball and lacrosse. It sat on a hill, like an emerging mushroom
Syracuse ,however, is a good university, ranking #62, with many excellent departments, including journalism. Their athletic programs are usually very good with basketball and lacrosse being strong
Okay, if you are a high school male who plays lacrosse really well, you should be thinking about Syracuse over Northwestern. Other than that?
Re football competitiveness, Syracuse is way better than us in football until proven otherwise. Excluding COVID year, they have more than 2x as many Ws as us since 2019. Kids want to win. This is a pivotal year for Fitz. Regardless of the challenges (depth, new coaches), he must show improvement.
Ok. They have better lacrosse. But only Men’s lacrosse. That’s it.
I grew up 90 min away from Syracuse. Really, there is very little outside of Men’s Lacrosse where NU isn’t much better. And please don’t mention journalism. I mean, really? You sound like Scott Starks.
Syracuse sucks.
To the star ranking discussion. Lemming is one of the few out there that knows what the heck he is talking about based on first hand evaluations.
If you looked at his comment it was not on whether the guy was a descent prospect or even that we are not glad to have him. It was that our ability to recruit the QB position has fallen so far now that we basically cannot out recruit anyone of consequence. We have been challenged for a while but now it seems especially bad as our last three HS QB commits have a total of only one other P5 offer between them.
Peatymeanis was pointing out that it was pretty hard to classify it as a recruiting coupe when the competition was as low as it was once Syracuse basically recruited over him within a week of him committing (basically forcing him to move on), Corbi was talking about him being an actual prospect. Two different arguments. Peaty's was in our inability to outrecruit anyone and Corbi was basically talent evaluation. I was just pointing out that in the last three recruiting cycles we have not been able to outrecruit a single P5 program for a HS QB prospect (once Syracuse basically removed themselves).
We all hope that he becomes the stuff of legends and hopefully it is proven out that a lot of programs overlooked him. I will be the last one to say that he had a bad tape. Heck in the past many of us suggested it was far better to have a MAC level QB talent in a class than a void like we did a couple times. That said, it can be pretty hard to compete at the level we need to be able to when you have to count on every recruit at the most important position being a diamond in the rough that every other P5 program in the country somehow overlooked. At some point we have to be able to win some of these recruiting battles against stronger competition if we are going to be better than what we have seen the last couple years
Last edited:
Latest posts
-
-
-
-
FB RECRUITING Familiar faces give Owen Fors a 'great' Prospect Day visit
- Latest: EvanstonCat
-