Syracuse Football Recruiting: The Essentials To National Signing Day

The Syracuse football program will experience its first National Signing Day under new head coach Scott Shafer on Wednesday.

The day is possibly the most anticipated day for college football fanatics, who love to live vicariously through teenagers and arguably the last career decision they will make for the next four years.

However, despite all of the cynicism that can surround NSD it is an exciting 24-hour period and can be a good barometer of how well your football program is doing.

If you're not a big NSD fan, but want to know how Syracuse sets up heading into the day you're in luck! Here's the essentials of what you need to know:

-- If you haven't yet listened to Monday's TNIAAM podcast with CuseConfidentials.com's Ryan Murray do so now. The podcast is long (1 hour, 51 minutes), but once you're done listening you'll be a NSD expert.

-- As of Tuesday, Syracuse has 19 solid verbal commitments, six of those are JUCO players. The Orange have a slew of 3-star players, however, no 4-star or 5-star recruits.

-- Overall, SU's Class of 2013 is current ranked 71st by Rivals.com, but by the end of Wednesday they could move all the way up to the mid-50s, according Murray.

-- On Tuesday, two three-star Illinois recruits - OL Kendall Moore and LB Reggie Spearman - are announcing where they're playing for the next four seasons. The high school teammates were both offered scholarships very late in the process and made visits to SU this past weekend.

The pair has hinted they would like to play college football together, but before Syracuse was interested both were headed to different schools. The Orange are hoping their last-minute offers can bring in the duo.

-- Entering Wednesday, the on-the-fence recruits seem to be DE Malik Brown (leaning Syracuse, but recently visited Tennessee), RB Laray Smith (deciding between SU and Indiana) and JUCO safety Duron Singleton (SU and Missouri).

-- At 3:45 p.m. ET on Wednesday, coach Shafer will hold a press conference to talk about the incoming class, his first as head coach. The presser can be viewed here.

-- For the best information during the day, I'd say follow me (because I'll update a lot of the news), however, I'll be getting most of my info from: @SUonRivals, @CuseNationFox, @McAllisterOnFox, @CallDT, @JohnGarcia_Jr, @OrangeFizz, @Michael_Cohen13 and @PSFootball.