Earlier this month, I reported that Tony Grimes, the five-star Virginia Beach cornerback in the 2021 class, was going to graduate from high school early and join UNC this year, rather than in 2021. Everything’s still on track for that, according to this article from InsideCarolina, and Grimes is set to enroll in August. 247Sports have updated his profile page accordingly, and below we’ll see what that means just in terms of numbers, and also other recruiting news from the week. Read on!

Football:

• Grimes goes from being the 7th-ranked player in the 2021 class per the 247Sports Composite to the 48th-ranked player in the 2020 class, a reflection of how much stronger the ‘20 class was than the ‘21 class — Grimes’ actual number rating, and thus his effect on a class’ ranking, is the same. We haven’t really considered that the ‘20 class is as strong as it was, because in North Carolina, the inverse has been true, but this gives us some perspective. With his addition, Mack Brown’s first full class goes from 19th in the country to 13th. His 2021 class, ranked 3rd for the few weeks that Grimes may have been in it, is now ranked 7th with 17 commitments, and with only a few more serious targets, looks much less certain to be a top-10 class than it did 3 weeks ago. It’ll likely end up in the top 15, though, and starting out with two top-15 classes is a heck of a way to start your second life at UNC if you’re Mack Brown.
• The day after our last recruitcap, pass rusher Trevion Stevenson flipped to UNC from Pittsburgh, softening the blow of not landing George Wilson from the same area and position. He’s obviously a big UNC fan already, so he’s certainly a culture fit for this NC-strong class, and with the staff being as selective as it’s being with committable offers, he’s probably a solid player, too.
• Last week, Brandon mentioned the Miami-committed kicker, Andres Borregales, as a flip candidate for UNC after the staff offered him a scholarship. This week, he confirmed that he would not flip from Miami and shut down his recruitment. The Heels aren’t hurting at kicker at the moment, but it would have been nice to get one of the top-rated kickers in the class. Oh, well.

UNC Football 2021 Commitments

Basketball:

• The only real news this week is that Keeshawn Silver, who you’ll see in the above table is one of Mack Brown’s top 2021 pledges, announced that he’d also be walking on to the basketball team, following in the footsteps of Greg Little and Julius Peppers, among others. Silver, at 6’5 and 255 pounds, profiles as an undersized but strong power forward. I don’t know how many rebounding battles he can win, but he’s not going to get moved off his spot by a lot of college players. We likely won’t see much of him for his football conditioning’s sake, but he might make a fun appearance sometime.
• In terms of players to watch for UNC commitments, we might have to wait a while for Hunter Sallis, who’s said he wants to wait until fall and possibly until he’s allowed to take visits to commit anywhere. According to Corey Evans of Rivals, there are rumblings that UNC “is a bit of a dream school” for Sallis, so I like the Heels’ chances, but it’s probably not going to happen for a while. UNC looked pretty decent with Caleb Houstan before he reclassified, too, but once a player reclassifies they probably know where they’re going and it’s probably not UNC, given Roy Williams’ recent history.

UNC Basketball 2021 Commitments

UNC Basketball 2021 Offers

Note: 247Sports does not have Houstan listed with a UNC offer since his 2021 reclassification announcement, but Rivals does. Since UNC definitely has room for a wing in the 2021 class, I’m going with Rivals’ interpretation until told otherwise.

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