The smell of fax toner, the warmth of the page as it comes off the roller, the rush coaches feel when seeing that scrawled signature of an 18 year old kid and of course fans cursing the names of high school football players while others hail them as the greatest player since Joe Montana.
Yes, today is national college football signing day.
UNC signed 23 players(two less than the max due to self imposed limits) to the 2012 recruiting class, the first under head coach Larry Fedora. Overall the class is getting decent reviews. Scout.com has it ranked sixth in the ACC and 40th overall which is good all things considered. In that past year, which is when most of the legwork is done putting a recruiting class together the NCAA dropped the notice of allegations, Butch Davis was fired, the team was run by an interim head coach who didn’t know is he would get the job, UNC hired a new coach who brought in a new staff that didn’t really get the ball rolling until late December and the NCAA still has not issued a final report. Having the NCAA’s hammer hanging over the program is burden enough to deal with in recruiting as is changing coaches. UNC has dealt with both at the same time which is going to take a toll. Any view of this class is taken with those factors in mind.
Overall, UNC got some good players but none that are necessarily “big fish” unless you count Gatorade South Carolina player of the year WR Quinshad Davis who announced his commitment today. Greensboro QB James Summers switched his commitment from NC State to UNC last week and joins Kanler Coker to fill out the QB depth chart which was hit by Patton Robinson’s decommitment and Braden Hansen’s transfer. OG Caleb Peterson, who had offers from several SEC schools, followed Fedora from Southern Miss to UNC.
You can get a full rundown of the new Tar Heels here. Also check out the commit list at Inside Carolina for more information on the UNC signees.
Aside from the recruiting class, the most interesting item coming from Larry Fedora might be this(via @Inside Carolina)
The white helmet has been discussed before but Fedora hinted that it might actually happen in 2012. Of course the helmet is like the recruiting class. Yes, it looks nice but what I want to see is UNC players with whatever helmet they choose playing smart football and winning games. The helmets and the commit lists are nice, now let’s see the coaching staff do something with them.
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I don’t know, I’m easily fooled by flashy helmets and shiny things. Heck I pay $4.00 a bottle for Dasani at Kenan, how smart can I be really.
Glad to see the UNC has some pull over what the coaches put into the effort. Fedora did a good job hustling to get some players, like taking one from NCSU, always a bonus. I like what I have seen from Fedora so far. Change he will bring, yes.
who are the 5 with better classes supposed to be?..
FSU, Miami, VT, Clemson…oh, its Virginia. hm.
a lot of discrepancy between ratings organization. Virginia
has the #1 OLB…but someone else says he’s the #15 DE.
and VT is ahead of us purely for having more recruits.
in any event, i’m encouraged by the group we got.
“The helmets and the commit lists are nice, now let’s see the coaching staff do something with them.
Amen!
this puts some fears to rest in my opinion. my biggest concern was that we would keep withers, (arguably) a good X’s and O’s guy but not a “face guy” who gets after the recruiting trail….see carl torbush/john bunting. if we want to be a top 25 program we need top 25 classes consistently, and i think Fedora brings that kind of excitement and energy. i am more and more pleased with the hire every day, go heels!
I am very encouraged by the recruiting class this year, given the circumstances. The Heels could have lost several of the guys the “previous regime” had recruited for many reasons.
As usual I am optimistic about the coming season. The OOC schedule is weak. Conference games might be the “Bowl” if and when the NCAA decides what to do.
I like the helmet! (And this coming from a big critic of uniform changes).
I’m going to wait a year b4 I decide if Fedora was a good hire. Maybe two years. If BD taught me anything it’s take your time deciding what is a good hire. I’m also curious about how well his system transfers to the NFL. High end players want to play for a coach that prepares them for the next level. Does anyone know how many players Fedora has coached that have gone on the pros?
I remember all of the buzz about Butch’s classes, and the best UNC could do was seven and eight wins.
I remember Bunting and Torbush supposedly having a good class or two, and we know how that ended up.
I also seem to remember schools like Boise State, TCU, VaTech, and others who don’t have all of the four and five star guys, but have good coaches in place that recruit to their systems and are in the thick of things regularly. I won’t be like the Cornhollers up here and salivate at the recruiting class, because it doesn’t mean a damn thing if you have terrible coaches in place.