UNC Football: WR Stephen Gosnell flips from NC State to UNC

Recruiting Flipmas got off to an early start this season. This afternoon, three-star WR Stephen Gosnell switched his allegiance from NC State to UNC, giving UNC yet another verbal commitment from the class of 2020. Tar Heel Illustrated broke the news with this tweet.

Gosnell is a 6’2, 200-pound wide receiver out of East Surry High School in Pilot Mountain, NC. If that name sounds familiar, there’s a good reason. His quarterback, Jefferson Boaz, committed to the Heels in June. That was followed by their teammate and Gosnell’s fellow wide receiver, Landon Stevens, who also committed last week as preferred walk-on. Gosnell will now follow his high school teammates to Chapel Hill, spurning the Wolfpack despite committing to them this past June.

Gosnell is a three-star prospect and became highly coveted by the Tar Heel coaching staff in recent months since his relatively recent offer. Phil Longo’s air raid offense requires an entire fleet of weapons, so the staff has continued to look for depth along the wide receiving corps. Gosnell fits that description. Rivals (#38), 247 Sports organic (#29), and the 247 Sports Composite (#36), have Gosnell firmly entrenched in North Carolina’s top-50 recruits, and local buzz thinks he should be even higher. According to MaxPreps, Gosnell has 37 catches, for 899 yards and 13 touchdowns this season. He’s averaging 112.3 receiving yards per game.

Gosnell is UNC’s 24th commitment for the class of 2020, and the 14th from the state of North Carolina. That number matches John Bunting’s 2006 class and Butch Davis’ 2009 class for the most in-state recruits in a single class since the turn of the century. Those were Bunting’s and Davis’ sixth and third recruiting classes, respectively. Mack has only been on the (new) job for 11 months.

North Carolina currently owns a consensus top-20 class in the nation and likely are not done. There are a few targets still on their board that the staff will try and close before the December signing period, overfilling the class if necessary (there are technically only 25 spots per class, but by being creative with early enrollments, some classes can go over if the ones around it compensate).

Gosnell is the second former Wolfpack recruit that UNC has flipped since Mack was hired last November: They also persuaded 2019 offensive lineman Triston Miller to switch allegiances. To date, none of UNC’s recruits have flipped to State since Brown came back to Chapel Hill.