I hope everybody’s had a restful, joyful holiday week, whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, or nothing at all but some days off from work/school. It’s because of that state of matters that there isn’t a ton to report vis-a-vis recruiting this week; recruits are at home just like the rest of us, with sports probably not among the top 5 things on their mind. Still, a coach’s job never sleeps, and neither does ours. Let’s get into what we can talk about:

Football:

• If you missed it, 25 of UNC’s 26 commits signed during the early signing day, with running back Elijah Burris the lone holdout. Burris is, I believe, UNC’s longest-tenured recruit, so whatever stopped him from signing, it’s not a wavering commitment. This means that yes, the staff managed to hold on to nose tackle Clyde Pinder, who had been flirting with hometown Florida, and inked him on the 18th well after everybody else had signed.
• This gives the Heels the nation’s 19th-ranked class, ahead of, for example, Florida State, Stanford, and Wisconsin. That number might fall a little bit after regular signing day, after the rest of the elite guys have finally made their decisions, but so many players sign in December now that it’s unlikely to fall past 20. Mack Brown, in other words, has signed a top-20 class in his first full year recruiting in this spell.
• We have comments from Mack Brown regarding this class’ early enrollees and regular enrollees. Here’s possibly my favorite:

[On Cayden Baker] “He’s an offensive lineman, 6-5, 285 (pounds) from Fort Myers (Fla.), southwest Florida Player of the Year nominee. He’s All-District, All-Southwest Florida. He’s also a tremendous basketball player, and you can watch he’s got a lot of athletic ability, but he’s tough, too. We think he’s going to be really big. His dad was a starting center for Coach (Bobby) Bowden at Florida State on some of those great teams. He can run and he will hit you, and you love to have basketball players at those positions because of their athletic ability.”

Basketball

• There’s literally nothing I can see to report; we’ve already covered basketball signees. It doesn’t look like Roy Williams is prioritizing the guys who have offered scholarships left in the 2020 class until he gets some more clarity on this season, meaning the chances of UNC getting one of Kerwin Walton, Greg Brown, or Ziaire Williams are slimming pretty quickly.