It’s come full circle for Scott Shafer.

The football clinics he helped build up during his years at Northern Illinois and Illinois more than 10 years ago pulled him and his staff back to the Chicago area, where they’ve developed a new pipeline that is feeding players to Syracuse.

“I’m indebted to Chicago,” Shafer said at his signing day press conference Wednesday. “I think we got quality kids from that part of the country and I’m excited to see them on the field.”

While George McDonald was expanding the Florida-Syracuse pipeline, the Midwest region emerged as a major source of prospects for this year’s recruiting class. Shafer and his assistants Tim Lester, Fred Reed and DeAndre Smith are all Midwest natives, and they’ve each dug into the area – particularly Chicago, where three of SU’s seven Midwest signees are from in the Class of 2014.

“Between those four, they know about everybody there,” said Eric White, Syracuse’s director of recruiting operations. “Our ties there are so good that I feel like we can go down there and compete against about anybody.”

Syracuse has hauled in 11 Midwest recruits in the past two recruiting classes. Aside from two players on the current roster, only one Illinois native has played for SU in the last 13 seasons.

“There’s really, really good football played in that state, in that area,” White said. “It’s so populated, so that is somewhere where we’re trying to get in and I think we’ve done a really good job establishing ourselves this year.”

Linebacker signee Colton Moskal, of Lake Zurich, Ill., said the nature of high school football in the region is comparable to Syracuse’s. It’s the Midwest prospects’ ability to withstand a grind-it-out style of football — as well as cold weather — that Moskal said makes them a good fit at SU.

Moskal has already started to get acclimated with his future teammates — particularly the players that hail from the same region he does — and the consistent topic of discussion is how much they can’t wait to get to Syracuse and get to work.

Said Moskal: “It’ll be like having family away from home.”

Published on February 6, 2014 at 1:38 am

Contact Phil: [email protected] | @PhilDAbb