Recruiting Round-up: #2 North Carolina

So rather than dwell on that depressing performance lets look at something else. Unfortunately, its equally as depressing...Butch Davis is building a fence around the state of North Carolina. The man can flat out recruit and that is not a positive trend for Clemson. Clemson has been able to pull the top NC defensive recruit for the past three years with Butler, Gilcrest, and Spencer Adams but that ended this recruiting cycle. We got an underrated Shuey and Shatley who I think will be solid contributors especially in terms of toughness, something sorely needed moving forward in Dabo's concentration on controlling the defensive and offensive lines. But thats all we got...

There was some serious talent in NC this year and while its not as important for Clemson to dominate NC, its more important to control SC, we need to be in position to realistically pick off two or three top players but four or five would be ideal. Its arguably even more important bc we are loosing the talent to ACC competition, North Carolina has a top five class, NC State has an underrated class, Duke is now a player in the game, and Wake always seems to get the most out of its recruits and player evaluations. We missed on good defensive talent with Donte Moss being the prize but lots of recruits we had a chance with Shankle, Bell, and Boyd at WR. We really should have been able to grab a couple of them and I am concerned that the coaching staff is going to put more emphasis on Georgia in the coming years, with seven coaches dividing up the state. Maybe this is a reaction to tougher going in NC recently but lots of talent exists, Robert Crisp the ginormous offensive lineman who has already camped before at Clemson will be a good test case.

One trend to note is NC State becoming more of a power. I have been surprised that Tom O'Brien has had a rough start in more fertile recruiting grounds, leaving the BC program he built. But he has always been a good evaluator and developer of player talent. Asa Watson from Rock Hill SC is going to be a good tight end and Denzelle Good is a solid o-lineman at 6-6 from Gaffney, a beast at the Shrine Bowl workouts. Both plucked from under our noses, both four star athletes and undervalued early on. This is the eye for talent that Grobe, O'Brien, and perhaps Cutcliffe posess that our staff needs to develop a little more. Hopefully the new position coaches will help round out our staff. Napier, Dabo and I imagine Jeff Scott are very personable, attract big talent, and are on the cutting edge of recruiting technology but may lack somewhat in scouting player development, something that comes more with experience. That may not be entirely fair at this point but we dont develop players like other schools and maybe this in some small way adds to that problem. Georgia on tap next...