First of all, I hope you’re all still blissfully recovering from stuffing your faces with family this past Thanksgiving. As per usual, there isn’t much recruiting news to be gained over a holiday week, so this one will be short. But just because it’s short doesn’t mean it’s not important! Anyways, here’s the long and short of UNC recruiting activity over the last week.

Football

• The big news out of last week is that linebacker Trenton Simpson came out of his visit to UNC with a commitment announcement date. While that’s usually all but confirmation that a guy is coming to the school he just visited, this announcement date is just Early Signing Day, December 18. Simpson had likely been planning on signing early anyways, so that doesn’t really increase or decrease UNC’s chances, in my opinion. That said, Chapel Hill is still easily Simpson’s most likely destination until Clemson makes any moves towards him. It might even be too late for the Tigers at this point.
• Two out-of-state studs committed to the Heels may not be super-firm, but there isn’t a ton of reason to worry as of now, either: Jacolby Criswell is flirting with hometown Arkansas and Auburn (after missing on most of their top QB targets), but hasn’t visited anywhere yet nor does his social media imply that he will. Clyde Pinder visited hometown Florida for the UF-FSU game, but will come to UNC for his official visit next week. Right now, it seems like they’re just enjoying the recruiting process for a little longer but will still be Heels. We’ll let you know if that changes.

Basketball

• We covered Roy Williams’ third offer to a player in the 2021 class, to point guard Kennedy Chandler out of Memphis. This offer looks a little different from the other two, which were to Paolo Banchero and Patrick Baldwin Jr. While those two look like they could enter the NBA Draft right now and are assured one-and-done prospects, Chandler isn’t quite that: his game isn’t quite as advanced as his size (6’1, 160) requires it to be if he’s to be an NBA player. He looks like an outstanding college guard, though, the type of point guard that Roy Williams has had enormous success with this decade. We’re not expecting much to actually happen with 2021 prospects this season, but keep this in mind.
• I thought the women’s class was over when I mentioned it last week, but Courtney Banghart has also added a transfer to the list: Ariel Young, a sophomore guard currently at Michigan, announced this week that she would be continuing her college career in Chapel Hill. She was a top-100 player in her class per ESPNW and will hopefully be eligible to play in the 2020-21 season.