I watched part of Wallace Rose Hill’s game yesterday and the kid looked good to me. Supposed to be really smart and a great kid too, so I think he’s a good commit. I think he was recruited as a safety but has decent size and might could play LB.
OOTB Carolina football discussion thread
- Thread starter gteeitup
- Start date
It seems I was wrong about recruiting Williams for defense. Probably recruited as a running back, but I’m not sure that’s where he’ll wind up playing. Anyway, he looks like the kind of athlete that can help us somewhere and I’m glad he’s a Heel.
Early signing period starts today. 14 of our 16 commits signed their LOI this morning. One is waiting until NSD to sign, and one is flipping to Arkansas for immediate playing time.
We're still working on building the numbers in this class, as obviously 14 isn't enough. That being said, though this class is short on quantity (for now), it's got some tremendous quality. I actually really like this class IF (and this is a colossal "IF") Jordyn Adams declines his MLB draft position in June and enrolls at Carolina for the 2018 fall semester.
Names to watch for immediate playing time next year:
We're still working on building the numbers in this class, as obviously 14 isn't enough. That being said, though this class is short on quantity (for now), it's got some tremendous quality. I actually really like this class IF (and this is a colossal "IF") Jordyn Adams declines his MLB draft position in June and enrolls at Carolina for the 2018 fall semester.
Names to watch for immediate playing time next year:
- WR Jordyn Adams 4**** Cary (N.C.) Green Hope. Son of current DL coach Deke Adams
- RB Devon Lawrence 4**** Wake Forest H.S., Wake Forest. Younger brother of current Clemson DL and future first round draft pick Dexter Lawrence
- WR Dyami Brown 4**** West Mecklenburg (N.C.) Charlotte
- "QB Jace Ruder 4**** Norton H.S., Norton, KS. This dude is a BALLER.
- DE Chris Collins 4**** Benedictine School, Richmond, VA. Y'all will like this dude. Very humble. He comes from a military school in Richmond.
- DT Jahlil Taylor 3*** Crisp County H.S. (GA) Cordele. Late flip from App State but don't let that fool you into thinking he's not talented. He's a fast-rising prospect and we fended off SEC schools for him. If this early signing period didn't exist, my hunch is keeping him would've gotten much tougher.
- DB/RB Javonte Williams 2** Wallace-Rose Hill (N.C.) Teachey -- always nice to get guys East of 95. He could be a sleeper in this class.
- OG Avery Jones 3*** Havelock H.S. -- gotta regain momentum with Havelock. Too many good prospects come from there for us not to have a presence.
Couple of questions for you. How many more do we end up getting in this class and what's the latest with Adams and baseball? I can't find any projections for MLB beyond the first round.
As far as how much more we end up with.... it's tough to say. I would LIKE to say 11 more and take a full class of 25 for once, but that doesn't seem likely. I hope we pull in 7 more recruits to bring our number up to 21, but realistically I'll say our class caps out at 17 or 18 guys. Which is a disappointing number but our team is young and with our godawful record, it was always going to be hard to build a monster class.
The loss of Payton Wilson really, really stings but fukk that dude. His comments were uncalled for and honestly seem like Doeren put him up to it. There's three big fish in particular out there we are still chasing: Dax Hollifield (4**** LB from Shelby, Rick Sandigge, 4**** DL from Concord, and William Barnes, a 4**** OL from Florida). We have no chance with Sandigge. He's going to South Carolina. I think we land Barnes, and there's a good (but not great) chance we land Hollifield. He's down to us, VT, and Stanford.
As for Jordyn Adams....it's so tough to find information on H.S. baseball prospects past the Top 50. Baseball America did this list back in September and Adams is not in their Top 50. But I have no idea where he ranks. What's signing bonus money like starting in the, like, 4th round? Selfishly, I'm hoping he goes in the 10th round or lower. He would be a TERROR for the Diamond Heels and the Gridiron Heels.
So I just found this site with signing bonus numbers. He's going to have to drop a lot lower than 4th round. Most of those guys are still getting $300k+. Hard to pass up that kind of money.
Agreed, especially for baseball.
I dont know how many of the 22 we lost for the season were seniors but im thinking it should be a good chunk coming back and creating nearly a class of their own.
It's hard to tell from that listing how much (unless it's 100%) of those numbers are guaranteed. But yes, he'll probably have to not go in the first 7 rounds to be safe (for us). Hopefully the pull of playing on the same team as his dad at a program he literally grew up around will draw him in. Plus, he could be a bona fide STAR at Carolina.... like as big of a star as a non-basketball player could possibly be. He's a charismatic, good-looking dude who would be a baller in football and baseball.
He's the caliber of player that could realistically bring a Coastal Division to the football team and an Omaha appearance to the baseball team.
How does Fedora feel about letting him play baseball? I know he's said that it's ok, but there have been a lot of FB coaches that say they are ok with it, but it's obvious they don't like two sport players.
I don't know that information. My sense is that no coach is truly okay with it, but if given the choice, Jordyn's situation is much more preferable than Chazz's situation (basketball). Realistically, you're not going to get hurt in baseball barring a freak occurrence like you possibly can get hurt in basketball with leg injuries.
There is the annoyance (for Fedora) of Jordyn presumably missing spring practices, but since Jordyn is a WR it would probably be okay. WR requires less film study than QB, which is why Chazz basically was told "no" to being on the basketball team.
For the life of me, I do not understand the rationale behind signing classes with less than the maximum number of allowable recruits. Fedora has done it 5 of his 6 classes here, and the one where we exceeded the limit we were only over by 1 recruit.
We saw the result of that approach this season. Not enough depth to adequately address all the injuries we experienced. I can't help but think if we had recruited full classes every year, we would've been better able to absorb the personnel losses.
We saw the result of that approach this season. Not enough depth to adequately address all the injuries we experienced. I can't help but think if we had recruited full classes every year, we would've been better able to absorb the personnel losses.
The only reason I can think of is that if you're optimistic about making a big jump forward as a program the next season, then you possibly can sign a larger class of higher ranked players the following year. But that's not a very good reason...
12 graduate (assuming Powell returns), 3 leave w degree early (Cabrera, Perry, Bonilla), 1 transfers (Byrd) -- that is just 16 open spots out of the 85 max. It would take 9 more guys to flunk out, xfer, or quit due to injury to get to 25.
You're allowed to sign 25 recruits each year.
2012: 23 recruits
2013: 18
2014: 22
2015: 19
2016: 26
2017: 20
That's an average of 21 recruits per year, or 4 below the limit. Multiply that by four years of eligibility and you're looking at 16 players we could've had on the roster. That's enough for all the personnel on one side of the ball and half the personnel on the other side as well.
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I really, really don't understand it either man, and I know we've talked about this. I was actually going to bring this up but was trying to be super positive lol. It makes zero sense why we don't sign a full 25. Wanna see what happens when your depth is terrible (both in numbers and quality)? See: 2017 3-9 season. Fedora and his staff need to wake tf up on this.
As for this...
No. You make the numbers work by telling certain guys on scholarship "hey, you're not gonna be on scholarship this coming year. You're going to have to pay your own way this year, but if things change, we'll let you know." Sure, that seems harsh, but the math is cold in college football. It's always a numbers crunch. Remember, we grant scholarships to some guys for a year or two who didn't expect to ever get one.
You can make the numbers work. Every big-time program makes the numbers work and they recruit bigger classes than us every season.
It's almost like.... it could've covered up 16/21 = 76% of our injuries last season
I get doing that for rs-juniors that have had a chance to get their degree, but I can't get behind doing that to sophomores, rs-soph, etc. Did Mack Brown have to kick underclass kids off the team just because they weren't developing as well as he'd hoped?
Something positive: at least -- now that we didn't get Zamir White -- we're no longer gun shy about signing multiple running backs in a class. In this class, we've got 4**** Devon Lawrence, high school state champ legend 2** Javonte Williams, 2** Kyle Wright, and we're still actively recruiting 4**** Mychale Salahuddin.
Something negative: back to the lack of signing a full 25, there's zero reason we should be turning kids away because we don't think they can hack it. Two players immediately come to mind that we EASILY could've gotten because both wanted to come here:
2017 class - Sage Surratt. Hmm.... we definitely could've used another WR last year *grabbing chin thinking emoji*
2016 class - RB Rico Dowdle from Asheville. We didn't even bother to really recruit this dude. Now he's one of SCar's better offensive weapons.
Both of those guys could've/would've helped us last year.
Something negative: back to the lack of signing a full 25, there's zero reason we should be turning kids away because we don't think they can hack it. Two players immediately come to mind that we EASILY could've gotten because both wanted to come here:
2017 class - Sage Surratt. Hmm.... we definitely could've used another WR last year *grabbing chin thinking emoji*
2016 class - RB Rico Dowdle from Asheville. We didn't even bother to really recruit this dude. Now he's one of SCar's better offensive weapons.
Both of those guys could've/would've helped us last year.
Where did I say kick underclassmen (or anyone) off the team? You remove scholarships that were already awarded after the fact. Guys know where they are on the pecking order. They're not stupid.
ETA: I don't 100% know how other programs do it, but they manage to do it. You can't approach college football like college basketball where you want every single player that enrolls at Carolina to leave with a happy experience. You want MOST to have a happy experience, but you're gonna have to piss a few fringe guys off when you tell them "sorry, it's not working out, we're not renewing your scholarship." It sucks, but that's how it is with football.
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My biggest gripe with Fedora has been the recruiting strategy as well. Take the full amount you can, no matter what.
But as you’ve mentioned, the JUCO things hurts us. Also, the academic scandal means we really can’t afford to miss on character kids. I’m guessing Bubba, for all his support of football, has told Larry to be extra careful. Value character kids. Be cautious.
Hopefully that loosens up a bit as we put that mess in the rear view mirror
Your math is way off - you realize 2013, 2014, 2015 we were capped at 20 by ncaa sanctions correct? And the max cap of 80 for three yrs that kinda squeezed the yrs surrounding it.
13,14,15 we averaged 19.66, that's less than one below obviously.
2012 Fed was hired in Jan, and he had to work hard just to patch Wither's lame-duck recruiting efforts, adding guys like Kanler Coker, Quinshad and Caleb Peterson. '13 was the first full class Fed hired.
'16, '17 averages 23 per year, but we added 4 grad xfers and 2 jucos (Morgan and Copeland) during that time.
With attrition and stuff we probably had a tiny bit of room here and there for another, but not much.
So even if you use tarheelnation's brute force approach of yanking scholarship from underclassmen, you are only talking about maybe 1 body per yr overall. And 2017 was probably the only yr much of that could've happened, since early-enrollee backcount was hindered by the 80-max cap til 2016.
Your point about character is a good one. That could be one excuse.
And yeah, I've banged the JUCO drum for years now. It's SUCH a good recruiting tool that we either cannot or do not take advantage of. VT's class is a little shaky this year. Guess what they just did? Signed the #2 (I think) overall JUCO CB. It's such a great tool to build depth, address needs, and also cover up for some "oops" misses in recruiting. It's not just fringe programs that need it. Alabama and other powers routinely get JUCO players and these players start. They're not there just to round out the numbers.
I don't see why we can't get JUCO guys. Is it because they're upperclassmen so we think they can't cope with the harder classes? I mean, just don't let them major in biology or something. Communications and journalism classes aren't any more difficult as a senior as they are as a sophomore.
It's almost like.... it could've covered up 16/21 = 76% of our injuries last season
Ouch thats a legit point
UNC has always been holier than thou with the academics and character stuff. It's only gotten worse with the NCAA scandal followed by the Academic mess. It will be a while before we get more aggressive with recruiting. As much money as big sports makes, Research donations dwarf them. The school wants to keep the real gravy train rolling.
Alumni at basically every school know that academics and athletics are completely separate entities. But you're right, Carolina alumni don't know this because they're supremely arrogant. It disgusts me how many people walked away from supporting athletics (read: football) because of the scandal. That makes NO FUKKIN SENSE to me. During your alma mater's darkest hour, you're going to turn your back on it and stop supporting the football program and the overall athletic department? Wow. Talk about lack of character.
I'm not saying they should have turned their back, but the athletic department didn't help themselves with the way they treated Butch. That turned a lot of people off and I think it's one reason some people have never been all in on Fed.
It's a weird thing. You'll throw money into blue zone, indoor practice field, etc, but force odd academic restrictions that other ACC schools don't have. We're trying to be Stanford...
Accept it isn't a legit point because the numbers in that post ignore the fact that 3 yrs we had a max cap of 80 with max frosh counters of 20.
I despised the way they treated Butch. He should've never been fired. Holden Thorp, and especially Dick Baddour, botched the effing hell out of the whole situation. It set us back 5+ years.
But did that stop me from supporting the program? No. My allegiance isn't to Butch Davis or Larry Fedora or Roy Williams. My allegiance is to UNC. Our fanbase, in a lot of ways, is the suck.
Yep, it's dumb. The charade is off and no one thinks our athletes are geniuses anymore. Drop the standards to the ACC minimum but continue to recruit high-character guys (which Fedora has done).
You're correct. I was keeping the numbers simple but see that skewed the results. The 20/80 restrictions were actually effective in 2012, 2013, and 2014 so the point remains that we've seriously under-recruited the last 3 years and are heading for a 4th.
Well we screwed the pooch handling how we screwed the pooch earlier. And now the pooch doesnt come around any more.
Couldn't remember if it was 2012-2014, or 2013-2015, thank you. I wanted to think it was the former, but I was second-guessing myself.
That makes the 19 in 2015 and 20 in 2017 even more damning.
Only 15 seniors graduated from the team that yr.
We added 4 Grad xfers (rodgers, dillard, truitt, harris).
We added ZERO walk-ons to scholarship this yr.
We ended up with a total of 85.
(15 - 4) - 85 = 11, so in order to have a class of 25 we'd have needed 14 jr, soph, frosh to leave unexpectedly. Instead only nine left early (brad henson, robert morgan, jp copeland, dunlap, dinkins, hood, nazair, mitch, fiealltau), leaving room for only 20 frosh.
You guys are excluding sanctions, then you're getting dates wrong, you aren't very good at this. 2012 couldn't have been the first yr cuz the sanction was levied March 2012, after signing day.
We were limited to 80 max in 13, 14, 15.
We were limited to 20 counters for 13, 14 15 classes. The '13 class is guys that are HS seniors in 13, like TJ Logan.
So just 19 in 2015 isn't damning since we were only off by 1. We also added Jordan Cunningham that yr, and probably didn't lose that many people off the prior team, but didn't have as many to "kick off' cause we were maxed at 80...
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