Four football players enroll early

Football Recruiting39

NC State Athletics has announced that four new football players who will be eligible for the fall have enrolled for the new semester at NC State and will be eligible for spring practice.

Sam Jones, (6-7, 295, Fuquay Varina, NC), OL/DL “originally signed with NC State in the spring of 2008, but attended Hargrave Military Academy last semester. An all-conference performer at Fuquay-Varina High School, Jones played defensive end and offensive tackle.”

Jones has been projected as an offensive linemen for years…but one can only wonder if the program’s recent success of building talent on the offensive line and relative lack of young talent/depth at the defensive tackle position may play a role in Sam’s future position? I don’t know.

[Update] As a response to ^these comments DireWolf added the following in our comments section:

I’ve met Sam Jones twice through a friend that works with him and Sam has stated he will be playing left tackle. As we know these things change all the time, but this was about a month ago that he said this.

We couldn’t be more excited about Sam’s long anticipated arrival into the program! By all accounts Sam appears to be a great kid who loves NC State. If Sam plays with half the perserverence that has has shown during his journey to finally get into NC State he will finish his career as one of the best linemen this school has ever seen. The public will never know the full story of the frustrations, hurdles, and institutional incompetence that Sam had to overcome to become eligible to play in Raleigh. We are not going to dwell on this topic, but we discussed some of it at length in this key entry that may be of interest to you.

Nathan Mageo (6-3, 285, Pago Pago, American Samoa), DT “transfers from New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell, New Mexico. He tallied 26 stops, including a dozen tackles for loss, during his sophomore campaign.”

As a junior college graduate playing a position where the Wolfpack clearly needed an immediate injection of depth and talent, Mageo has the best opportunity to make the most immediate impact of the four early enrollees as he looks to blunt the losses of Antoine Holmes and Keith Willis, Jr.

sets him apart is his technique and non-stop motor. On film, Mageo consistently keeps a good pad level and does a tremendous job of getting under the offensive linemen. He’s able to then use his strength to shed blockers which allows him to disrupt plays in the offensive backfield.

“Although Mageo moves fairly well, it’s at the point of attack where he’ll be most effective for NC State. He is able to occupy blockers and eat up space which should mesh well with defensive coordinator Mike Archer’s philosophy. Because the Pack will be so thin at defensive tackle next season, Mageo will likely be counted on for early contributions and he certainly appears to have the talent

Mageo is a native of American Samoa, so Wolfpack fans will immediately harken to memories of Ricky Logo – who played the same position for the Wolfpack from 1989-1992. Mageo impressed recruiters/coaches with his tenacity and technique. Similar to Logo, he is both strong and has the advantage of a low center of balance that helps him get under offensive linemen. He also had offers from Division One programs such as Kansas State, Hawaii and Baylor.

James Washington (6-0, 180, Orlando, FL), RB “rushed for 1,597 yards on 175 carries during his senior campaign at Boone High School, an average of over nine yards per carry. He also scored 17 touchdowns en route to leading his squad to the 6-A state semifinals. As a junior, he tallied over 1,700 yards.” Although not a speed burner with breakaway abilities, he is a prototypical Tom O’Brien back who has a tremendous natural instinct for the game and does all of the (not so) ‘little things’ like block, catch, and get the extra yards with some elusiveness.

Donald Coleman (6-0, 205, Detroit, MI), DB chose to come south instead of accepting scholarship offers to various Big Ten teams. He “spent his senior campaign as a safety and running back at The Hun School in Princeton, N.J. In eight games last season, he rushed for 803 yards and seven TDs, while forcing five fumbles and racking up 74 tackles on defense. Previously, he played linebacker at Orchard Lake St. Mary’s in Michigan.” Coleman is a hard hitter who has strong closing speed and will most likely redshirt at safety (especially if Javon Walker returns as expected from injury).

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Football Recruiting

39 Responses to Four football players enroll early

  1. McPete 01/09/2009 at 11:06 AM #

    “I don’t think there are many future superstars in this class”

    i know kickers are rarely (if ever) superstars, but i’ve read that Chris Ward is one the best kickers in his class. maybe our Sam Swank?

    Speaking of Coleman’s position, is Hans Rice the other tweener you mentioned as playing SLB, Leonard’s position?

  2. Noah 01/09/2009 at 12:12 PM #

    I do not believe Chandler will qualify this year. Wayne Crawford…I don’t know if I’m ready to put him in the rotation today.

    The greatest punter in the world still isn’t a superstar. 😉 But yes, I’ve heard Ward is good too.

    Yes, Hans Rice was the other one.

  3. Jeff 01/09/2009 at 1:58 PM #

    This conversation is FANTASTIC. Compare/contrast this to an ‘idiot board’ thread and you can understand why this site gets so much quality traffic.

  4. Classof89 01/09/2009 at 4:05 PM #

    ^^
    good explanation, as usual, from Noah. Only comment–you need to chase all the big boys in your back yard heavily, no matter if you project you might not need them three years from now, PRECISELY because “some people quit and some people flunk out and some people to have arms fall off and a couple of guys got eaten by lions and two kids ran off to join the circus.” This sounds like a case where doing the “right thing” in terms of what you or I think is right (i.e. not recruiting a kid because you think you don’t need him, have a higher priority in next years class and don’t want to recruit over him, etc.) wasn’t the right thing from a purely athletic/program building point of view (Butch Davis–scholarship limits? We don’t need no stinkin’ scholarship limits…)

    I think some moderate “over-recruiting” is not only OK in light of normal attrition of Division I football players, but its the sound, prudent thing to do. I don’t like that the airlines overbook flights, but I understand the sound business, load-management principles for doing so.

    Not saying TOB did anything wrong this year, but what ordinarily would be considered prudence now looks overly conservative in light of the unprecedented attrition we suffered this year.

  5. Noah 01/09/2009 at 4:20 PM #

    We chased the big boys. Tom O’Brien was at Xavier Nixon’s school the very second that in-person contact was allowed. He dropped off a written scholarship offer that day.

    We wanted Donte Moss. We wanted the kids from SSS. We wanted Travis Bond. We wanted Tyler Shatley and we wanted the RB who is going to Dook (I think we did).

    We dragged our feet on a handful of OL. One is going to Penn State, I think the other two are going to UNC. There were some kids that we didn’t really go after because of their academic standing.

    Back in September, I told someone that I thought we would end up taking 25 kids and every single one of them would be a three-star recruit and we’d end up with a class ranked about 40th. We actually did a little better than that.

    I think we’ll end up with a group of about six guys that just about anyone would be really happy to get. Denzelle Goode, for instance…I think 95 percent of the schools out there would love an OL prospect like that.

    But the value of the others may be more difficult to pin down. For instance…this year when Clem Johnson went down, we had to replace him for a game and a half with a guy who was a walk-on. Now, that guy played pretty well. And he made a big play in the Miami game. But we’d all agree that you really DONT want to have to start a walk-on if you can help it. You’d really like your walk-ons to be backups on the punt squad.

    Well, we’re signing a bunch of guys this that I think will all add value to that end. Yeah, it’s good when you can sign Andre Brown. He’s an elite player. But it’s also good when you can sign a guy who can fill in for Brown and won’t kill you. You don’t have to cover for him.

    NEXT YEAR, I believe we’ll see more of the elite players. It will be a smaller class, but will satisfy the “wow”-need.

  6. ChiefJoJo 01/09/2009 at 5:47 PM #

    “I do not believe Chandler will qualify this year. Wayne Crawford…I don’t know if I’m ready to put him in the rotation today.”

    Crawford played quite a few snaps vs Rutgers from what I recall, and *might* be described as serviceable, but does not look physically put together like say an Antoine Holmes either. But I don’t see what choice we have at this point. He may not be ready, but there’s not much to choose from, unless I’m missing somebody.

  7. redfred2 01/09/2009 at 9:13 PM #

    I agree with whoever said it above, this is a great thread with lot’s of good info contained within. I wish we could put together a little run in BB so that the mood would get a better on those threads as well.

    Hell, Noah is even sounding upbeat here. 😉

    JK, really good stuff, thanks Noah and everyone else.

  8. SEAT.5.F.2 01/11/2009 at 2:50 PM #

    Potentially a very interesting development in the works on the football front. Reports are that a current student athlete at Georgia Military College has taken the first steps towards joining States football team next year.

    No need to get into anything else since I’ve got a link. Good read for anyone to get the full insight of this individual.

    http://youpiblog.com/tuvw277/archives/9

  9. SEAT.5.F.2 01/12/2009 at 8:56 AM #

    TOB and his staff continue to make hay outside the state of NC. Two verbal commits from DT were acomplished over the week end.

    1) Deion Roberson out of Tucker HS in GA. Strength enclude having a great frame to build once he hits Murphy Center weight room. 6′ 3″ with the make up to really bulk up w/o losing athletic abilities. Unknown is how his ankle, which was dislocated badly in october, rehabs and what kind of lingering affects if any come with that injury (nothing new to Wolfpackers.)

    The big attraction for him was that apparently State did not drop of contact with him after the injury, but instead kept up with him to find out how he was doing all along.

    As many have noted all along, TOB does not make rosy promises to get these guys to tag along, and his staff are straight up honest and stay respectful through out the whole process.

    2. Ray Randolph of Brandywine MD. Very solid player at this point of his playing career and was commenting leading up to this point that it was between us and Penn State. With a shortage of DT’s on the roster there is a very distinct possibilty that Randolph will dress and play some in ’09.

    Interesting to note that 7 players from GA have commited to State and Brian Slay a DT out of VA has GA guy up until last season. The player out of GMC noted in the last post would add another to that list.

  10. SEAT.5.F.2 01/12/2009 at 9:23 AM #

    Whats up with the EDIT feature SFN?

  11. ChiefJoJo 01/12/2009 at 9:41 AM #

    Well, now apparently we may have the Michael Lemon kind from GA (according to PP there’s a story behind us talking him despite the charges against him), plus Robertson & Randolph… all could be DTs. I feel a little better about DT now as it appears we have some flexibility at both DT & DE. We might be in a better position to bulk up a known quantity like Kuhn and move him inside (w/Cash, Burgess, Mageo, & Crawford), add lemon to DE with McKeen, Reiskamp, Augustin, & Young at DE. Maybe the best performers of the incoming freshmen DL will play some snaps as well.

    In any case, I love the focus we are placing on shoring up numbers on both lines of scrimmage. TOB knows that’s where games are won and lost.

  12. Noah 01/12/2009 at 10:02 AM #

    Lemon is a def. end. I don’t think he’ll play inside.

  13. SEAT.5.F.2 01/12/2009 at 12:47 PM #

    Lemon outside would give us this year and next year the flexability to have Kuhn/Sweezy become DT. There was no report on it but I don’t recall seeing Kuhn playing against RU, instead I know Augustine and Sweezy took snaps at DE.

    Anyway you slice it the staff did a great job suring up the future run stuffers of this program. As Noah noted before, we had two recruits that were suppossedly ready to step in and compete at DT not work out. We had to play catch up Slay, Randolph look like solid safe bet ACC caliber and many thought that before the ankle injury Roberson could have rocketed up the scouting charts.

    As alway with recruiting, we shall see. It wasn’t like anyone was drooling over the commitment of Alan M-Cash.

  14. SEAT.5.F.2 01/21/2009 at 8:17 AM #

    TOB and Co. have pooled every bit of resources they have in recruiting expertise to get Jarvis Byrd from Pahokee Florida. He verbally committed in the fall after the Pack offered first. He had seen atleast 2-3 of his teamates offered by elite programs and he had only seen bottom tier BCS teams interest perk.

    Then WFU (former Pahokee CB Antoine Smith) came hard charging in followed by Byrds lifelong favorite team the ‘Noles. Many assumed it a matter of when not if that the talented CB would switch paths, but wait..

    After an Official this weekend he seems right on target (LOI/Clearinghouse always the only things that matter though) and alot of WOlfpackers have good reason to be excited. He could be and impact player after we learns the speed differenc and how to keep his head above water at the next level.

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