Get To Know Your Orange Man - #99 DT Ryan Sloan

It's about that time. The return of the Get To Know Your Orange Man series. Let's get to it.

Name: Ryan Sloan

Position: Defensive Tackle

Year: Sophomore (eligibility)

Height: 6'2"

Weight: 326

Hometown: East Patchogue, NY

High School: Bellport

2012 Stats: Sloan sat out the season due to The Dreaded Lower Body Injury (TDLBI).

2013 Projections: Sloan is in a dogfight for playing time, currently sitting third on the depth chart at nose tackle behind Eric Crume and Zian Jones. Coming off an injury that kept him out for an entire season, there's a lot of unknown quantity in Sloan, and there's a lot of him to go around. If he can work his size to his advantage, it seems crazy to keep him off the field, but that's up to him.

How'd He Get Here?: Sloan was named to Newsday's All-Long Island 1st team in both his junior and senior seasons, finishing second in Bellport history in tackles (196). He chose Syracuse over offers from Rutgers, UConn and South Florida.

What'd Scout/Rivals Say?: Rivals gave him the old two-star treatment but Scout saw something more and handed him three.

Money Quote: "Obviously I had to drop a couple of pounds which I’m in the process of doing right now, I’ve lost about 10 pounds." - Sloan, at 310 pounds, when he committed to SU. He's now at 330.

Links of Wonder: We include this every year but it always bears repeating just how much Sloan went through to become a top-tier high school football player worthy of a scholarship to a D1 school, including losing his mom and suffering a significant eye injury. MSG Varsity detailed how Sloan lost his right eye due to an accident when he was three years old.

Tweets of Wonder:

We still eating government cheese. Sooner or later we gon be eatin stake. That's a promise

— Ryan sloan (@Freak_Nasty99) July 8, 2013

What Does Shafer Think: Hardnosed thoughts for sure. But I haven't seen anything specific to Sloan.

Interesting Nugget O'Interest: You may remember the academic scandal that reared its ugly head surrounding Sloan's high school tenure. Two years ago, the New York Post reported that his coach and a Bellport official attempted to fix Sloan's grades to help him qualify at Syracuse. Sloan, and all involved, denied any knowledge of wrong-doing. Early last year, the Post reported that an investigation proved the allegations untrue.

Let Us Get a Good Look Atchya: Here's Ryan when he first signed up to play for the Orange.