Syracuse Football: Orange Add Preferred Walk-On QB Tyler Gilfus

Last time the Syracuse Orange added a preferred walk on QB (Zack Mahoney) it worked out fairly well. Let's see if it works out for a second straight time.

Confirmed by Syracuse.com today, the Orange have added preferred walk-on quarterback Tyler Gilfus from Thousand Islands High School (Clayton, N.Y.). The in-state product led TI's fairly conservative attack (917 yards through the air, plus 14 TDs) to a the playoffs this past season. According to the Syracuse.com article, Gilfus has camped at SU for the past few years and received an offer from the previous staff last year. Dino Babers's staff confirmed they'd honor the original offer and he reported to campus last week. His mother is a faculty member at Syracuse, which would assist in offsetting the tuition a walk-on would normally be on the hook for.

Gilfus had no other offers that I can find. He'll be one of five passers in spring practice for the Orange. Sophomore Eric Dungey, redshirt junior Austin Wilson and freshman Rex Culpepper are the only scholarship players in that group, joined by walk-ons Mahoney and Gilfus.

While some might be quick to read into this as a guarantee Syracuse isn't getting another QB in the class of 2016 (and that still might be the case), the backstory on how this offer came about seemingly throws that direct correlation away. Obviously still a bit disconcerting that 40 percent of the quarterbacks on campus are walk-ons, despite Mahoney's quality performances from 2015.

Film on Gilfus below, for those who want to see what SU's getting: