Spring Football Notebook 2024: Allen Jr. bulks up, blocking TEs

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Even as the temperature was at 20 degrees around 8 a.m. Monday, Syracuse football went out and practiced outside on the field next to Ensley Athletic Center. Both offense and defense stretched and worked on drills out in the cold with the sun shining down on the third day of spring ball practice that was available to the media.

Over the weekend and into today, the Orange picked up four new commits from all over the country and at various positions. The recruits they received commitments from were three-star offensive lineman Byron Washington, unrated cornerback Jordan Gibbs, unrated defensive end Jaylen Pray and unrated wide receiver Marcus Upton. These commitments came after waves of recruits and their families flooded Ensley during Saturday’s practice. There were still more recruits there this morning to the pleasure of Syracuse coaches.

“I will say we’re working our butts off in recruiting,” offensive coordinator Jeff Nixon, who cannot specifically comment on any commit, said. “It’s good to see some recruits out here this early in the morning.”

Head coach Fran Brown also mentioned the recruits and their families, joking about the weather as he wore shirts with the temperature barely above 30 degrees as the hours rolled along.

“We still had guys come in and come see what it’s like to be in the snow and you realize it’s not as cold as people tried to say it was,” Brown said. “…We play inside anyway. (We) still get a chance to be outside. You’ll see guys from Florida, Texas all over the place out there diving into snow.”

Here are more observations from today’s spring ball practice:

LeQuint and his fellow rushers

Immediately at first glance of starting running back LeQuint Allen Jr., you’ll notice he has bulked up over the offseason. Indeed, Alijah Clark said to The Daily Orange Saturday that he and Allen Jr. have added “15-20 pounds” in the offseason. Allen Jr. is already noticing the difference.

“I just felt stronger, felt more explosive,” Allen Jr. said.

Nixon, who most recently was the running backs coach for Saquon Barkley with the New York Giants, said he expects Allen Jr. to be a 210-220-pound rusher at the professional level. Nixon said he believes Allen Jr. is a three-down back, showing off his ability to pass protect and run while practicing handoffs with quarterbacks Kyle McCord and Carlos Del Rio-Wilson.

As for the other rushers on the team, Allen Jr. now has to shift into being an elder statesman of the position group. He has repeatedly mentioned how he has to be more vocal with some of the younger backs on the team like freshman Yasin Willis, who comes to the program as a three-star recruit out of New Jersey, a shared home for the two that expands to the rest of the team.

“Some people like to know about Jersey, so I’m talking about Jersey and stuff like that and being able to give scenarios,” Allen Jr. said. “So it’s fun and we’re tight, we’re all from the same place.”

The need for big guys

Brown emphasized how Syracuse needs to get bigger. With commits like Washington and current upperclassmen like Allen Jr. and Clark bulking up, Brown is showing off his philosophy when it comes to size.

“We got to get bigger, we got to keep getting tougher too, though. You could be big, if you’re not tough, it doesn’t matter,” Brown said. “So, I believe big people beat little people up. So we just try to get bigger.”

Brown has spent time around the offensive linemen during the first days of spring ball, seeing how some of the starters like center J’Onre Reed, tackle Enrique Cruz Jr. and guard-tackle Joe More tackle and hit. The head coach mentioned how one offensive line coach was not at practice due to a death in the family, giving time for graduate assistants to work with the position group.

“Our GA got a chance to step in place and be there and I just wanted to see, see the players and then also see how he ran position,” Brown said.

Tight ends blocking

One early drill Nixon and the offensive staff had the tight ends doing was blocking against the defensive linemen. Tight ends Oronde Gadsden and Dan Villari, both at the front of the stretch line for the position group, went up against linemen like KingJoseph Edwards and Chase Simmons, respectively. More block-heavy tight ends like Maximilian Mang were also in this brief drill as well.

Nixon used the mantra, “no block, no rock,” citing how the tight ends block in order for them to catch passes. The offensive coordinator detailed how the tight ends will be incorporated into the blocking scheme on specific types of running plays.

“If we want to run the ball, we have to have tight ends that can hold the edge for us or block inside on some of our inside zone, some of different runs games,” Nixon said. “That’s just a part of their job responsibility.”