North Carolina Tar Heels: Look Back at Signing Day
The North Carolina Tar Heels went through National Signing Day yesterday and ended up with a class ranked in the thirties among the recruiting services. It had a couple of four star players and filled out the rest with three star players.
According to Scout.com, the highest ranked recruits were offensive lineman Jay-Jay McCargo and tight end Garrett Walston. McCargo will joining one of the more veteran units on the team in the offensive line, and it would not be surprising if he was redshirted or saw limited action next year. However McCargo does play guard and there is a big hole from where Landon Turner was in the starting offensive lineup.
One of the trends in this recruiting class is more pro sized athletes on the defense. This is the mark of continuing to build the 4-3 under Gene Chizik. Some examples of this would be linebacker Jonathan Smith (6’0” 229 lbs), defensive end Allen Cater (6’3” 240 lbs), and defensive tackle Kyree Campbell (6’3” 310 lbs).
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There is one JUCO player in this group, linebacker J.B. Copeland. Copeland will provide some immediate help to filling a position absented by seniors Jeff Shoettmer and Shakeel Rashad. It would not be very surprising to see a starting trio of Cayson Collins, Andre Smith, and Copeland to start the year.
There were 26 signees in total, which means at least one of them may not be arriving this fall. There were also several players who enrolled early and so are already in Chapel Hill at this point.
Jordan Brown – RB – Durham, NC
Logan Byrd – QB – Perry, GA
Kyree Campbell – DT – Woodbridge, GA
Allen Cater – DE – Marietta, GA
J.B. Copeland – LB – Navarro College
Nolan DeFranco – DE – Winter Garden, FL
Myles Dorn – S – Charlotte, NC
Marlon Dunlap – DT – Charlotte, NC
Luke Elder – T – LaGrange, GA
D.J. Ford – S – Lineville, AL
Tomon Fox – DE – Suwanee, GA
Rontavious Groves – WR – Nashville, TN
Tyrone Hopper – LB – Roswell, GA
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Roscoe Johnson – WR – Union, SC
Jay-Jay McCargo – G – Arlington, VA
James Pierre – S – Deerfield Beach, FL
Tyler Prichett – G – Auburn, AL
Patrice Rene – S – Alexandria, VA
Greg Ross
– S – Oxon Mill, MD
Dominique Ross – LB – Jacksonville, FL
K.J. Sails – S – Gibsonton, FL
Jonathan Smith – LB – Laurinburg, NC
Chazz Surratt – QB – Denver, NC
Noah Turner – TE – Mundelein, IL
Garrett Walston – TE – Wilmington, NC
Myles Wolfolk – CB – Upper Marlboro, MD
From the list you can see that recruiting came from the state, Florida, Georgia, or the DC area. In fact the number of DC area guys just kind of surprised me, but that is because I was not looking for it. The DC does have a good number of football prospects every year.