Football Recruiting: UNC Trying to Unseat Clemson as ACC's Best

Shout it from the hills!!!!!! UNC now has the #1 recruiting class in the ACC for 2021!!!! Mack Brown has brought success back to the tarheel program and is ready to overtake Clemson and Dabo Swinney. He can’t be stopped. Twitter says so. 247 says so. Lee Corso has a famous saying, “Not so fast my friend.” Sure, Brown has somehow convinced talent from the state of North Carolina to stay home. This is a good thing for the ACC. For some time now, the path for Clemson to the college football playoffs has been far too “easy”, according to the experts and of course other fan bases that have had very little to no success against said Clemson Tigers.

***Clemson Current 2021 Verbal Commit list *****ratings courtesy of rivals.com

Basic analysis of the top two classes in the ACC shows this new found success for North Carolina is the push to keep the local talent home. Of UNC’s 14 total commitments to the 2021 class, 13 are from the home state. No matter how you massage it, the tarheels are working hard to keep talent home but you can’t build a championship team on only home grown talent. On the news today, even the sports announcer on the local NC station is proclaiming “UNC has passed Clemson as the best recruiting class in the ACC.” Reminder; it’s April 18th. UNC has 14 commitments with an average rating of 0.9159 per player. Yes, as ratings go, especially for UNC, that is a good rating. Clemson, on the other hand, has 10 commits with a 0.9555 rating per player, including six players that rate 0.9624 and higher. Korey Foreman is listed as the #1 player in the nation with a player rating of 0.9997 by 247. According to ESPN, which in my opinion is a much better evaluator of talent, Foreman is at #3 behind Ohio State signee Jack Sawyer and uncommitted 5-star OL Tommy Brockmeyer. Clemson is in the mix for Brockmeyer.

Per ESPN rankings, Ohio State is #1, Clemson #2, Florida #3, and then UNC #4. Trust me when I tell you that 247 is not the most reliable when it comes to evaluating talent. They don’t actually evaluate talent. They don’t watch the game film. They don’t take into consideration anything but the star ratings passed on by other recruiting sites. While it looks good with the headlines “UNC overtakes Clemson in recruiting,” it’s false news. It’s been proven that while recruiting is highly important, recruiting is only a part of the equation. Coaching and developing takes over once these kids get on campus.

Of Clemson’s 10 commitments to date, players are pulled from six different states. None are from South Carolina. Clemson is a national brand and pulls players in from as far away as California to come to little ole Clemson. UNC depends on home grown talent, Clemson does not. South Carolina depends on home grown talent that Clemson does not recruit. How has that worked for them? UNC has kept talent home. There are two players that Clemson is recruiting heavily in the state of NC; #9 player in the nation 5-star Payton Page and #22 ranked ATH 4-star Will Shipley. If Brown could keep these guys home, then that would be an accomplishment worth mentioning. Page has narrowed his choices down to Clemson, Tennessee, and UNC. Shipley is apparently a battle between Clemson and Notre Dame.

Two of the Nation's top players Payton Page and Korey Foreman (ranked #1 Overall)

In summation, recruiting rankings is a numbers game. Yes, highly successful teams are loaded with recruits ranked highly by these sites, but coaching and developing players are the keys. Keeping talent home is nice but having the coaching staff to pull it all together and develop the “star talent” into a team is quite different. Clemson has been in the college football playoffs every year because not only has Dabo Swinney and his staff brought in talent, but they have molded this talent into a team. Mack Brown led his team to a 7-6 record last year with notable losses to Appalachian State, Wake Forest, and Virginia (who both got waxed by Clemson). Yes yes, we all know Clemson went into Chapel Hill and escaped with a 1-point victory. Yes yes, we all know they came within a 2-point conversion of taking the lead. One thing we also all know - Clemson went into this game and took them lightly. This won’t happen again. Don’t get me wrong. I want ACC schools to recruit well, and start pulling their weight in the conference. However, let’s not get ahead of ourselves by claiming a new league champion based on keeping homegrown talent home. Clemson is still the top dog and will be for some time to come. Brought to you by: