James Washington, a 6'2", 220-pound defensive end from Winter Park, Florida, committed to play football at Syracuse in 2012 on Thursday after having a lovely chat with Greg Adkins and Tim Daust on Wednesday. Well, mostly committed.
"I committed to Syracuse," Washington said. "I just wanted to make an early commitment. I’m going up there next week to visit and I just decided commit early. Right now I’m like 85 percent committed because I want to see the campus, but they pretty much got me. I’m pretty sure I’ll fall in love with the school once I get up there."
Washington is coming off a season in which he had 15 sacks and averaged about 6 tackles per game. He registered 58 tackles in all, 30 tackles for loss and two forced fumbles.
The Orange apparently beat out some serious competition for Washington's services. He had 17 offers on the table, including South Carolina, West Virginia, Illinois, Pitt and Purdue and Cincinnati. So what made SU worth the trip up north?
I got to know the defensive coach and that was really good," Washington said of Coach Daust. "I talked to the head coach [Doug Marrone] and I looked up and researched the program . They really get after the QB and I really like that. They had the top 7 defense in the nation last year."
Rivals ranked as the 55th outside linebacker overall while Scout gave him two stars.