Meet Mike Hart, the most prolific running back in New York high school football history. He’s a senior at Onondaga High, 10 miles from here. Last Friday, he set the national prep records for career touchdowns (179).

Hart will likely play in the Carrier Dome two more times – for next Saturday’s Section 3 championship and in the Class D state championship Nov. 28.

That’s because Hart, perhaps the best running back this city has ever seen, will not play at Syracuse next fall. In July, Hart orally committed to Michigan, citing his desire for a change of scenery.

He’s the latest big-time, local player to shun SU. So are the Orangemen losing their grip on backyard talent? While the issue is more complex than that apparent conclusion, local high school coaches note two factors that hamper SU: the number of desirable area players and coaching-staff continuity. Of course, the Orangemen’s affiliation with a Bowl Championship Series conference might burn them in the future.

‘The Big East being raped the way it’s being raped, that’s going to hurt Syracuse,’ Christian Brothers Academy coach Joe Casamento said. ‘Coach (Paul Pasqualoni) could send Jesus Christ out there to recruit, and he’d still be in trouble.’

The obvious aside, prominent Syracuse-area players leaving the region is becoming a noticeable trend. Running back Dorsey Levens chose Notre Dame in 1989 before transferring to Georgia Tech. Wide receiver Marquise Walker picked Michigan in 1998. Linemen Will Smith and Shane Olivea left for Ohio State in 2000. Running back Jolonn Dunbar, who expressed little interested in SU, opted for Boston College in February.

Others, like Liverpool High’s Chris Gedney and Tim Green and current SU running back Damien Rhodes, of Fayetteville-Manlius, have stayed. Of course, the list is longer on either side of the stay-or-go issue.

‘The Syracuse kids hear an awful lot about Michigan and Notre Dame,’ said Al Merola, head coach at Solvay High since 1970. ‘It’s hard to compete against those places. The notoriety in the Midwest and those places, it kind of overshadows Syracuse.’

Also, New York pales in comparison to Texas and Florida as prep football hot beds. Empire State players earned 11 Division I-A scholarships last year, Casamento said. So the talented players stick out more.

‘If you’re a kid that Syracuse is after,’ he said, ‘then every other school in the country is after you, too.’

Said Merola: ‘It’s not like (the Orangemen) are losing them to UNLV.’

While Syracuse’s current affiliation with a BCS conference keeps it somewhat on par with its competition, the Orangemen may suffer in another area: continuity.

‘It’s turnover in the coaching staff that has made the difference,’ Merola said. ‘When you’ve got a different guy on a kid every year, you don’t have the same notoriety of having the same guy on a kid all the time.

‘When a guy leaves Syracuse’s staff, he’s got (recruits) who he knows, and he takes away all those kids. If you lose 10 coaches over 10 years, they’re taking away 100 kids.’

Five of the Orangemen’s 10 coaches have more than five years experience at SU. Recruiting coordinator Jerry Azzinaro is in his fourth season. Compare those figures to two of SU’s prime recruiting competitors, BC and Penn State, and they actually look decent.

The Eagles have only four of 10 coaches with more than five years experience at BC, partly because head coach Tom O’Brien started in 1997. The Nittany Lions, under Jurassic Joe Paterno, coaching at PSU since 1950, have six of 10 coaches who top the five-year mark. Including Paterno, four boast 20 or more years with Penn State. Then again, Penn State has slumped lately and is 2-6 this year.

Yet Syracuse no doubt suffers from the fact that Todd Littlejohn is the Orangemen’s sixth cornerbacks coach in six seasons. And, lately, SU’s secondary is its sorest spot.

Which plays into high school kids’ ‘what-have-you-done-for-me-lately?’ attitude. Since the Orangemen have missed a bowl game in two of the past three seasons and are on track for one of their worst attendance averages in the past 17 years, their obvious answer is ‘not much.’

‘We’re in a day in age right now where kids are so exposed to BCS polls and ESPN games,’ Corcoran High coach Tim Schmidt said. ‘Everyone going to college wants to play for a national title. Syracuse is just very solid. There’s no real flash to them.’

Published on October 30, 2003 at 12:00 pm