Signing Day is Here!!!! Surprise Looming?

'13 Football Football Recruiting32

2013 signing day central

College football signing day is here!!

What a change we have experienced in Raleigh!? In the span of just under two months, NC State fans have gone from overwhelmingly apathetic regarding the annual rite of passage of signing day to highly interested and engaged in the happenings of “life in the fast lane”!

You can thank Coach Dave Doeren and his staff for the big shift.

If you haven’t been paying much attention to the hamster wheel that is college football recruiting then you have missed quite an interesting transformation in Raleigh over the last couple of months. Coach Doeren and his staff deserve significant praise for making an immediate impact on this year’s class – a very difficult feat when you consider the long term sales cycle of recruiting and relationship building. Said with more ‘quantification’, in the last month NC State’s national recruiting rankings have jumped from a range of #65-#70 to something more like #40 on the backs of some important commitments.

Hopefully you recognize this because you’ve been following our message forums (linked here). For example, this article and conversation was actually written BEFORE Doeren’s staff went SIX FOR SIX by nabbing commitments from every official visitor that we hosted last weekend!!

NC State’s new staff beat out SEC and Big 10 programs, among others, for players like Dayes, Gibbs and Jones. Gibbs was not even on the Pack’s recruiting board when Doeren was hired on Dec. 1. Getting Dayes back in the fold is a huge victory, and the addition of Brissett could really pay dividends down the line, while they had to fend off opposing programs for several who were verbally committed when they took the job.

If the staff can duplicate the effort they have given in their short time on the trail so far, recruiting at NC State looks like it is on the upswing. Nothing is signed and delivered yet on the 2013 class, but this staff has shown they are willing to battle for who they see fit for their system, can quickly make an impression and close the deal despite stiff competition.

Truthfully, the jury is still out on a staff that was just completed in late December, but the evidence that has been presented so far shows they have the qualities and desire to do damage on the recruiting trail. It still won’t be a completely level playing field because many schools have been working on the class of 2014 for some time, while the Pack has had to scramble and focus entirely on this year’s cycle, but this coaching staff will have a full year to prove their mettle by this time next February, and the results could be stunning.

Even the folks in Atlanta are noticing the Pack. This piece just hit.

In addition to the recent excitement generated by Doeren and his staff, there are some rumblings that ‘something big’ could potentially happen for the Wolfpack on Wednesday. Although not confirmed, there are rumblings that State may have landed at least one big name that will become

Chancellor Woodson certainly did nothing to diminish this speculation when he announced in Wilmington on Monday night that ESPN was going to be on NC State’s campus for National Signing Day. Evidently he alluded to something big happening, but wouldn’t give specifics.

For a quick primer on the needs of every ACC school you can click here.

North Carolina State
Biggest need: Athletes for spread offense.
Biggest recruit: Three-star wide receiver Johnathan Alston leads a very good class of skill players.

Speaking of Alston, if you haven’t been following our message forums then you might have missed the news in real-time that the Pack landed a commitment from Alston over UNC-CHeats just last week.

I would ask that you definitely take the time to discuss whatever you would like in the comments section of this entry as well as on our football message forums. Additionally, I am impressed with GoPack’s Signing Day Central (linked here) that is providing some great coverage in real-time. It is a huge improvement from their work in the past.

Lastly, please don’t ignore Jigawatt’s daily webrun (linked here) that serves all of the NC State news that you need to set your table for the day!!

About StateFans

'StateFansNation' is the shared profile used by any/all of the dozen or so authors that contribute to the blog. You may not always agree with us, but you will have little doubt about where we stand on most issues. Please follow us on Twitter and FaceBook

'13 Football Football Recruiting

32 Responses to Signing Day is Here!!!! Surprise Looming?

  1. packbackr04 02/06/2013 at 10:55 AM #

    so am i going out on a limb to predict a trio of former Wisconsin Commits are going to go with the Pack today?

  2. gcpack 02/06/2013 at 12:22 PM #

    Well the Woulard kid who plays QB isnt the surprise announcement . He just appeared on ESPN and is going to UCLA. ESPN said he was the top running threat QB.

    Not really sure we can expect much more this year but the future looks bright with the new younger staff.

  3. gopack10 02/06/2013 at 12:25 PM #

    I didn’t think Woulard was an option anyway after we got Brissett.

    Still don’t think that is the potential surprise but I’m still hoping for something big.

  4. packbackr04 02/06/2013 at 12:29 PM #

    Are there any top players uncommitted? Does Wisconsin or Arkansas have any big players they were counting on who they don’t have their LOIs for yet?

  5. packbackr04 02/06/2013 at 12:31 PM #

    How about Keith bryant

  6. Hungwolf 02/06/2013 at 1:05 PM #

    Good late push of getting some more recruits by the staff. 25 kids last I looked. We need bodies. Hopefully can develop and redshirt many of them. Checked out the ACC Sports Journal for updates, they really just need to change their name to Tar Heel Sports Journal. I will never go to their site or ever buy the magazine again.

  7. DRW 02/06/2013 at 1:12 PM #

    Is this the surprise being the 12th ranked class in the ACC according to ESPN?

    Woo Hoo!!!!

  8. gcpack 02/06/2013 at 2:03 PM #

    Hungwolf you have to remember that the ACC Sports Journal was once The Poop Sheet published out of Chapel Hill by former TarHole bball player Dennis Wuycik.
    I subscribed for two years back in the early nineties and cancelled it because I realized it was the view of the ACC from Chapel Hill. The Village Companies of Chapel HIll also had a radio show on Tuesday nights called something like The ACC Tonight and it was the same baby blue view. There still is a syndicated show once a week but have no idea who carries it. Now Carolina graduate David Glenn, who cut his so called journalistic teeth working for daddy Dennis, runs it and while it isnt as bad as the former Poop Sheet it still has the UNC taint on it. So buyer/reader beware.

  9. JohnGalt78 02/06/2013 at 2:06 PM #

    “…they really just need to change their name to Tar Heel Sports Journal.”

    Indeed! And The David Glenn show….perhaps the “Tarhole Buttboy Show”…

  10. apollocreed 02/06/2013 at 3:13 PM #

    Breaking news!!! We just signed a 5 star DE with a UNC tattoo on his forehead!!!

  11. PoppaJohn 02/06/2013 at 3:45 PM #

    “Is this the surprise being the 12th ranked class in the ACC according to ESPN? ”

    It is nice to see some excitement, but if I’m honest, the list looks similar to many years. Mostly 3* players we hope will become better.

    But kudos to the new staff for keeping this from being a train wreck. If they did well enough to not have a catastrophic down year (or several), then that is as good as we could hope for, considering the limited time they had.

  12. BJD95 02/06/2013 at 3:57 PM #

    Avoiding a trainwreck was crucial, we already have two trainwreck classes in the recent pipeline. Which is why I will be shocked if we win more than 4 games in 2013, or 6 in 2014.

    Short term, we just have to pray we avoid a 9 or 10-loss disaster season that makes NC State an even tougher sell.

    Yes, I know many people disagree, but that kind of optimism is simply natural to change. Football ain’t hoops, you don’t turn it around with 2 or 3 players. Our depth the next few seasons will be frightening.

  13. packalum44 02/06/2013 at 4:17 PM #

    ^ Anyone else remember the comments TOB made after taking UVA job….something along the lines that he had 70-75 scholarship players over much of his tenure and comparing it to PSU type of sanctions????

    No single comment by anyone in our AD department other than Lee F has ever pissed me off more. B/C the F’ing moron said it as if we were supposed to feel sorry for him instead of blaming him for the current state of our f-ball team! GDSOB. Despise that man.

    Still don’t see how 4 wins next year is not a worst case scenario as opposed to a base. Our out of conference schedule games are the worst we’ve had in recent memory (caveat I have blocked essentially all my memories of WP f-ball from the past 20 years).

  14. BJD95 02/06/2013 at 5:16 PM #

    I could see us losing every game on the schedule. Not saying we would go 0-12 (that’s absurd), or that we will be underdogs every time out.

    But NO game (even Richmond) will be a 90+ percent confidence game. And I can’t even fathom beating anyone good.

  15. YogiNC 02/06/2013 at 5:54 PM #

    Man what a chicken little bunch this is. We haven’t lost that much talent. And with some inspiration that the new coaches are bringing I’m thinking we’re gonna do a whole heck lot better than TOB’s first year, because we REALLY had nothing back then.

  16. TeufelWolf 02/06/2013 at 6:24 PM #

    What’s the verdict. I can’t tell much by the comments.

  17. freshmanin83 02/06/2013 at 6:33 PM #

    I would imagine that our record would be tied somewhat to our QB play. I am not sure what kind of play we will get from that position.

  18. packbackr04 02/06/2013 at 6:36 PM #

    Soooo…. I take it there was no surprise?

  19. Dogbreath 02/06/2013 at 6:38 PM #

    BJD…the yardstick of success next year is whether he gets our fatass offensive lineman into even a modest level of fitness. I agree that we are likely to get trashed in most of our games.

  20. eas 02/06/2013 at 6:50 PM #

    I want to know what the surprise was as well?

  21. lush 02/06/2013 at 6:57 PM #

    Why is there such a disparity in Yahoo / Rivals v ESPN rankings?

    Espn has Carolina in the 20’s and Rivals has them in the 40’s.

    State is 46 in Rivals and Espn has us last in the ACC.

    ?????

  22. WeAreCured 02/06/2013 at 7:09 PM #

    Bueller… Bueller… Bueller…

  23. wolfonthehill 02/07/2013 at 5:48 AM #

    The “we didn’t lose that much” comment is a bit baffling. We lost our QB (the only reason we won several games), FOUR offensive linemen who started at times, our top 3 tacklers on defense (including Dowdy now – sigh), and the entire planned starting defensive backfield.

    Agree that there’s no reason to expect anything but a full rebuilding year… and that would’ve happened had TOB been here. Glad DY saw the headlight coming at us in the tunnel & pulled the plug before it got REALLY ugly for him. He deserved to go out better than this season would’ve been for him…

  24. SqlWolf 02/07/2013 at 6:28 AM #

    Looming surprise? Uhhhhh…. Did anyone see or hear what that surprise happened to be?

  25. PackerInRussia 02/07/2013 at 7:40 AM #

    I’m guessing it was Asiantii Woulard who ended up committing to UCLA. Went from “Surprise, surprise” to “Shazaam”

1 2

Leave a Reply