How Syracuse Uses Technology in Recruiting Process

June 4, 2021 / Athletic Leader • Coaching • Technology

In the world of competitive athletics, everyone is looking for an edge. For many collegiate programs in 2023, that edge is found in the form of technology.

Syracuse University’s athletic programs are no different in its approach to finding future star athletes.

A recent article on SI.com outlined a Q&A with Syracuse’s director of recruiting Kramer Cook to find out how the Orange are using different technology during the recruiting process.

Below is an excerpt from that Q&A.

Q: How much did technology help the evaluation process as things changed due to the pandemic?

Kramer Cook: “I think Hudl was huge obviously. Zoom obviously was another enormous piece of the puzzle. At Syracuse, it is a hurdle to get some of the guys that we’re recruiting down on the eastern seaboard. We’ve got guys from Texas, California on the team. Our footprint can go nationally. Obviously, the eastern seaboard is the biggest piece of it, but it’s tougher to get guys on campus, so having a virtual visit where we can sit down in a living room and we can kind of give them an overview of the competitive advantages of Syracuse and what we have to offer. That was huge for us because now they don’t have to worry about hopping on a plane or traveling four to five hours. You’re able to kind of get your selling points out to the kid through just in their living room, and that’s something we have never done in the past. Usually, it’s an in-home visit or calls or things like that, so utilizing that was enormous. And then the second part of this is the position meetings with the coach. In a cycle before pre-pandemic, you’re coming up for junior days and official visits, there’s usually more than one recruit with you when you’re doing these position meetings with the coach. It’s really like kind of a presentation from your position coach on what they have to offer, what their core qualities are, how they view, say, offensive-line play right.

“They’ll go through their techniques and this is what we do, this and that, but now I think part of the evolution process is going one-on-one on a Zoom call with your position coach and show him this is how I coach. But also getting out of the kid what’s his Football IQ like. When I go through and I’m teaching technique, is he taking notes, is he really into it, or is he kind of just looking around and looking at his phone. And you can tell it’s really the recruiting process that he likes and not necessarily the actual game of football. Those are the guys that I think we were able to weed out a little bit too through position meetings, and that’s something we’re still using to this day.”

Q: What other technology is used by Syracuse?

Cook: “We also have access to a lot of the camp video as well that’s cut up and curated for us. The kids going to an Under Armour camp or a Rivals camp, we subscribe to different services where we can get, a week after that camp, we can log in and watch a curated tape of a kid. All of his throws at an Elite-11 camp and get some of those verified sizes. That was huge for us through the pandemic because you’re going from either sophomore or junior film and then this big gap The film evaluation was crucial, but you’re talking about a year for a 15-, 16-, 17-year-old and how much their body can change during that time. And you’re talking about a point of time where we can’t see them in person and see their development. So those types of clips and those types of videos were huge. As far as, ‘ok this is where the development is at now’ because that’s taken out during the pandemic. OK, he is getting bigger, he’s put on ten pounds, maybe he’s grown an inch and half or whatever the case may be. Then you go to that final step, that video for their senior year and you’re able to confirm some of those things as well.

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“It was really all virtual data points where you’re just confirming what you had thought from the original evaluation. They’re (camp video) through something else. We have two things. We have Zcruit and we have UCReport. Both of those are tied into different camps. Then what they do is they’ll go and they’ll film the entire deal. Then they have people on their side of things that are cutting up that camp footage so I can click on a top, I’m not going to say a name, but our top quarterback. He’s been to three or four of these different camps. I can log on and watch every single throw from those camps. It’s curated for us.”

To read the full Q&A from SI.com about Syracuse’s use of technology in recruiting, click here.