You know I remember when I signed my letter of intent to run cross country at UNC Greensboro. The fanfare. The crushing media attention. The offers of extra benefits from boosters. Good times. Actually I think it was my parents, my coach and a photographer from The Smithfield Herald sitting in a mobile classroom behind my high school. And in case the NCAA is reading, no I never received any improper benefits unless bringing containers into the cafeteria inside by bookbag then filling them with cereal counts.
Anyway, today college football fans get their first solid look at the incoming class of 2010. Unlike basketball, football is a tad more muddled in how many recruits pan out. Not that the rankings are totally worthless. Scott Kennedy, director of scouting at Scout.com says there is certainly a correlation between teams at the top of the recruiting rankings and those who end up near the top of the polls during the season. Then again, this is coming from a guy who works for an organization that is making money hand over fist from people paying for premium content just to see what color marshmallows are in some five star recruit’s cereal in the morning. Blue marshmallows!?!?! He is so coming to UNC!
In short it is an inaccurate science. It is also only the first step of many in building/sustaining a program. Obviously it is better to start with great potential and then do the work of development. However there are many cases where players bloom late or improve significantly because the coaching is just that good. In short, my advice is to cautiously celebrate the work Butch Davis and his staff are doing today and bear in mind there is much more work to do. At last check Scout.com had UNC’s class ranked 32nd overall and fourth in the ACC behind FSU, Miami and Clemson
Inside Carolina has a rundown of commits as they sign their letters of intent.
Tar Heel Blue has a Signing Day blog up and running with updates.
ACC Sports has some classic signing day stories from The Coach Who Shall Not Be Named.
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obviously, we arent a Florida, that has 4 of the top 10 recruits in the country signed.
but…we have a very nice class shaping up.
we just got a surprise 4 star receiver who was leaning to SC til recently.
so, anyone…State has higher rated facilities than we do? this does not include the stadium. so says espn.
BD and staff rounded out the class very well in the last week. The Heels picked up outstanding DB’s, WR’s and DL’s including Ethan Farmer (DT) which is a very nice in-state signing.
In a nutshell the DL, LB, DB, TE, OL, WR and RB (Bernard 4*) positions all have very highly rated skilled recruits. UNC continues to pick up “speed” based on the recruiting analysis.
I was hoping for a QB surprise, however, the day is not over.
So far I am pretty pleased with the recruiting class… if we can somehow add a QB then “pretty pleased” will become “dancing in the streets until my wife makes me come inside or I catch a cold”. Great job by our coaching staff of poaching some of Tennessee and Cincinnatti’s recruits. I think we even took a couple of Tom O’Briens brownie’s too.
there’s a Junior at my daughter’s HS who (I think) is going to be a UNC commit. ECU is chasing him too, so it will be interesting to see how it shakes out, but he will be signing for baseball. 95 mph fastball, AND, he’s a great place-kicker too. I witnessed him nailing a 50 yarder (into the wind) with PLENTY to spare this past season. Side note–he plays FB & baseball alongside James Baldwin’s son, who is heading to Elon.
doubt we’ll see any QBs this year. next year, we are already in the running for home grown QBs Christian LeMay and Price Litton.
The one signing I am interested in reading about is that some team signs away John Shoop.
I could not let pass without mournful comment this second anniversary of the auctioning off of the contents of my beloved Rat.
Honestly, it was like they were auctioning off a part of my life. How could they!! And it was all about some petty tax dispute. It seems the owners hadn’t paid state taxes.
For a few years.
This is just a rough stretch. First the Rat goes belly up. The next year Hansbrough graduates. Now the basketball team collapses.
I need to do something to cheer myself up. Something like……going to Hawaii.
So I am. I leave in 48 hours. I’ll be there for for three weeks.
I’m already feeling a little better about today’s anniversary……
Excellent bounce back for the Tar Heels this recruiting season. If you get a chance drop by: http://tarheelblue.cstv.com/ and check out the videos, the tour of the facilities is pretty nice as well as a few other videos they have in place presently. I was excited to actually view the videos since the normal website/template video never works for me and IMO our website is just poor.
Be sure to look at the kid from TN that has only played football one year and the running back from Florida. Interesting guys to be sure if not the heralded players in this class. It will be nice to see large groups of players going into a senior year as we move forward. A big change from where we started at the outset of the Butch Davis era.
Go Heels!
I can’t really put a lot of stock in recruiting class rankings; if they meant a hill of beans, then TCU and Boise State wouldn’t be in BCS bowls, and Virginia Tech wouldn’t be as strong as they are.
I think (hope) that we’re on the verge of a big year; I think this team is a QB away from actually being something better than 8-5.