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The Coach Who Shall Not Be Named: Yeah, We Loved Russell Wilson and He Loved Us But...

Otherwise known as Tales from the Hairy Upper Lip.

Not that I think we ought to spend too much time getting worked up over past recruiting decisions but I find the latest recruiting tale from The Coach Who Shall Not Be Named slightly interesting.

Basically, UNC and NCSU were both recruiting Russell Wilson who, at the time, was a lightly regarded two star prospect with a huge upside in baseball. UNC already had Mike Paulus committed and Paulus was a highly touted QB coming out of high school who turned down Pete Carroll at one point. The story goes that Wilson had a workout which then OC Frank Cignetti called "best workout I’ve ever, ever seen." In short they wanted Wilson but that had one issue, if they offer Wilson then Paulus is going to be unhappy and likely de-commit which had the potential of causing other players in the class to also de-commit.

So despite the fact the UNC coaching staff believed Wilson was the greatest thing since sliced toast, they decided the sensibilities of Paulus were much more important than signing a player who they believed was the best available QB. The flip side to that is the UNC staff had been involved with the Paulus family since brother Greg was a prospect so I imagine they may have felt a need to show some loyalty.  However one  would think you could have discussed the situation and assuaged any misgivings they might have about Wilson committing as well in order to get both players.  Which would have been nice but at the same time is really worthless speculation since no one knows how it would have turned out.

Of course the real gem in the article comes from something Roy Williams said when the recruitment of Greg Paulus was in full swing.

Roy (Williams) over there in basketball thought that Greg would be a better football player than he would be a basketball player.

Danny Green agrees with this statement.

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