Syracuse, N.Y. \u2014 In a stunning development Wednesday morning, five-star wide receiver Calvin Russell III said he will not sign with Syracuse today.<\/p>\n
Russell announced his decision during Miami Northwestern\u2019s (Florida) signing day ceremony Wednesday morning. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a hard three or four days,\u201d Russell said. \u201cI\u2019ve been thinking and I won\u2019t be signing today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russell did not say why he won\u2019t be signing with the Orange.<\/p>\n
Russell, a 6-foot-5, 195-pound receiver, committed to Syracuse in July, becoming the program\u2019s highest-ranked commit in more than two decades.<\/p>\n
He was supposed to be the crown jewel of Syracuse\u2019s 2026 class, its highest-ranked recruiting class in the modern rankings era.<\/p>\n
But since his highly publicized commitment, the Orange performed poorly on the field, wrapping up a 3-9 season in which the offense was hampered by poor quarterback play and an inability to develop any passing threat.<\/p>\n
At a time when players can negotiate pay with schools, it\u2019s hard to know what prompted Russell to change his mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could be a mixture of everything,\u201d Syracuse head coach Fran Brown said Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
The Miami native has been heavily recruited by his hometown school, where his mother played basketball, and was on the sidelines for several Miami football games this fall.<\/p>\n
Michigan was also considered SU\u2019s primary competition leading up to Russell\u2019s decision back in July.<\/p>\n
Through it all, Russell and his representatives have maintained he was coming to Syracuse.<\/p>\n
Until he wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the nature of the business,\u201d Brown said. \u201cFinal hours. I have complete confidence. I\u2019m really good at recruiting. I\u2019m also great at building relationships. I have faith in the block S. I have faith in myself and my staff and I continuously work.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m confident we\u2019re gonna sprint through the finish.\u201d<\/p>\n
The three-day early signing window runs through Friday and has come to effectively replace the traditional signing day in February.<\/p>\n
With Russell foregoing Wednesday\u2019s early signing date, four-star wide receiver Amare\u2019 Gough from Thomas Jefferson (Virginia), has become Syracuse\u2019s top player in the 2026 class.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Syracuse, N.Y. \u2014 In a stunning development Wednesday morning, five-star wide receiver Calvin Russell III said he will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-328447","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}