Carolina Football: Updated rankings reflect well on 2020 commits

With an updated top 247 from 247Sports, as well as some tweaks to the ESPN recruiting rankings, there was pretty significant movement on the 247 Composite (Tar Heel Blog’s preferred source of prospect rankings) yesterday.

After spending much of the spring in the top ten nationally, the Heels have settled into the teens, currently ranked 15th overall and 4th in the ACC. With the rumored leanings of blue-chippers such as 5* DE Desmond Evans and 4* DT Kedrick Bingley-Jones, the Heels still have some helium in the class rankings if things break their way. (On a somber note, Charlotte linebacker Trenton Simpson moved to five-star and #14 overall in the country. Please reconsider that Auburn commitment, Trenton.)

The biggest mover in Tuesday’s re-shuffling of the deck was perhaps Carolina’s most important commit, as Arkansas QB Jacolby Criswell got his fourth star on the composite. He’s now ranked the #300 overall player in the class, #9 dual-threat quarterback, and from a perception standpoint, becomes a headliner in the class. Quarterbacks are always viewed as the ringleaders of recruiting classes, so Criswell’s promotion (nominal though it may be) skews perception among offensive players in the class upwards.

The update was not fully comprehensive, as five UNC commits (LB Cedric Gray, OL Malik McGowan, RB Elijah Burris, DE/LB Kaimon Rucker, and CB Jayden Chalmers) don’t have ratings from all of the major services just yet. In the case of Rucker, expect his stock to rise pretty rapidly sometime in the future.

While the composite doesn’t appear to publicize overall national rankings after the first 1000 players, something to note: the 2019 recruiting class had all of five commits in the top THOUSAND PLAYERS IN THE COUNTRY at the time of Mack Brown’s arrival. The Heels finished with fifteen, landing Sam Howell, Khafre Brown, Triston Miller, Eugene Asante, Emery Simmons, Wisdom Asaboro, Ty Murray, Don Chapman, Tomari Fox, and Khadry Jackson late.

For 2020, the Heels already have 16 based on that metric, including 9 in the top 500 and three in the top 250. Those numbers were 4 and 2, respectively, last year.

The future looks bright in Chapel Hill, and only appears to be getting better as summer turns to fall. Stay tuned.