Each North Carolina assistant coach is assigned a region of the country for which they have to recruit players and talk to high school coaches.
In the Butch Davis era, the Tar Heels are known for being among the most dogged recruiters in the country, with every class hovering around the top 30 in the nation according to Scout.com. They think they are improving.
“As you look at our classes that we’ve brought in here, coach Davis has kept the bulk of the staff together for four years,” said Allen Mogridge, who became North Carolina’s recruiting coordinator earlier this year after John Blake’s resignation.
“What you are seeing is the relationships getting stronger every year with the assistant coaches and the high school coaches in their geographic areas.”
Mogridge is the face of UNC to hundreds of recruits, as he is tasked with wooing high school juniors and seniors to come play football at UNC.
Once the coaches decide which players they believe can compete on the college level, it becomes Mogridge’s job to coordinate visits and help recruits see the campus.
Getting a name out
From there, the Internet recruiting websites take a backseat of sorts, where instead of engaging the action, they record what each recruit said about his visit and the recruiting pitches that each school used.
“(Internet websites) have some role,” Miller Safrit, a Scout.com writer for North and South Carolina, said. “Really, I think it’s a very preliminary role, as far as the coaches at the universities. But the bigger thing is, there’s a lot more honesty in the recruiting game.
“It’s more for recruits to see what the coaches are saying to other players.”
For high school recruits and coaches, the most important thing is what the programs are telling the other recruits at their position.
“I could care less if my kid has a four- or five-star rating,” King said. “I want to put my kid in front of as many college coaches as possible, because that’s the ultimate goal. Our goal is to convince college coaches to give our kids scholarships.”
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Giving the UNC pitch
It is Mogridge’s job to make North Carolina the most appealing school that offers a scholarship to any given recruit.
Mogridge may give Rameses a run for his money in the UNC spirit department.
“First and foremost, you know where I went to school, so there is not a more biased opinion of any place than what you’re going to get from me,” Mogridge said.
“I’m a walking, talking, living, breathing testament to the fact that this place can change lives. The degree you get from the University of North Carolina will carry you through the rest of your life.”
Mogridge stressed the importance of academics and said that official visits look like the walking tours that all other high school seniors take when considering a school.
“A lot of times, you say, ‘What does the athlete guy see that the student guy does not see?’” he said. “The bottom line is, that person is a student-athlete. If you take the football out of the equation, it has got to fit you.”
In some cases, Mogridge and the coaching staff decide that a perfectly capable football player may not “fit” the environment at UNC.
“What you try to do is identify what makes each individual prospect tick and what they need,” Mogridge said. “It’s a process of addition and subtraction sometimes. For some people, this place isn’t the place for them.”
Prospective students must sort through all the information they’re given from the plethora of sources to determine the best school for them.
Making the decision
“For some players, academics are important; for some, it’s the color of the school,” Safrit said. “It really is surprising what’s important to the players.”
Since UNC and its recruiters stress academics and other off-the-field factors, its success in recruiting is less surprising. If the recruiting pitches were tethered to UNC’s gridiron exploits, the possibility of NCAA sanctions on the program would be more of a deterrent.
The collection of talent that Mogridge & Co. are expecting to receive on Wednesday is among the best — Scout.com ranks them as the 19th-best class in the country.
“It’s a really good class for what they’ve had to work through, since the NCAA stuff hasn’t come down yet,” Safrit said of UNC’s 2011 recruiting haul. “They may end up losing some players because there isn’t anything finished with it.”
Any uncertainty in the football operation can serve as a deterrent to recruits looking to commit to a stable football environment, and former recruiting coordinator John Blake’s resignation after the first week of the season could qualify as uncertainty.
“The players they’ve picked up – Sylvester Williams, Norkeithus Otis, Travis Hughes – I think, are amazing pickups, given what they’ve had to go through,” Safrit said. “Those are three players that are some of the top players in the country. I think Hughes and Williams have the potential to come in and play early.”
Safrit named offensive line five-star Kiaro Holts as one of the players who has fielded offers from the biggest football programs in the nation before committing to UNC.
Restricted by NCAA rules about commenting on specific recruits, Mogridge and the UNC staff are striving for another top-ranked recruiting class.
“Our entire coaching staff is working extremely hard to put together a group of young people that fit the Carolina model,” Mogridge said.
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