Morris: NC State, UNC, Duke fight border battle on recruiting

This really is no secret. For Duke, North Carolina and N.C. State to elevate their respective football programs to a nationally elite level, they need to begin closing down the state’s borders in recruiting.

Wednesday’s national signing day was another in both futility and frustration for area programs in their attempts to keep the state’s top in-state talent home. Once again, Clemson and SEC programs raided the state.

Of the 13 in-state players listed among the Rivals.com top 250 prospects in the Class of 2016, a mere two elected to attend college in North Carolina. Thaddeus Moss, a tight end from Charlotte, will play at N.C. State, and Jordan Brown, a running back from Durham, will play at UNC.

The biggest one who got away was Dexter Lawrence, a 6-foot-4, 340-pound defensive tackle from Wake Forest High, who is enrolled at Clemson for the spring semester. Lawrence was listed by Rivals.com as the No. 2 prospect in the country. He chose Clemson over N.C. State, among others.

“The players understand that our schools in North Carolina want them to stay home,” said Reggie Lucas, who coached Lawrence at Wake Forest High. “For the most part, I have to say North Carolina and North Carolina State did a great job of recruiting Dexter. So, it’s not like they’re not trying.

“I felt like Dexter was close to staying at home, but with everything that’s going on with Clemson and the way they’re running their program now, it was probably the best fit for him.”

Interestingly – maybe embarrassingly – Clemson signed four of the state of North Carolina’s top 13 prospects this year. In addition to the five-star Lawrence, the ACC champion Tigers landed four-star wide receivers Cornell Powell of Greenville and Diondre Overton of Greensboro, as well as four-star offensive lineman Sean Pollard of Southern Pines.

“Historically, North Carolina has been an important state for us,” said Dabo Swinney, Clemson’s coach. “Our (1981) national championship team had over 20 players on it from North Carolina. We have had a lot of starters from North Carolina in recent years as well. Really, we look at North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia as just one big state when it comes to our recruiting-base area.”

Clemson success

That history of Clemson success recruiting in North Carolina began during the mid-1970s. Clemson’s 1975 recruiting class included 15 signees from North Carolina. Four years later, that class was the bedrock to an 11-1 season and No. 6 national ranking. Among the more prominent Clemson signees from the Tar Heel state over the years were Joe Bostic, Jeff Bostic, Dwight Clark, Perry Tuttle, Jeff Davis, Kevin Mack, John Phillips, Donnell Woolford, Chester McGlockton and Stephone Anthony.

Clemson’s run to the national championship game this past season included several key starters who hail from North Carolina, among them starting offensive guards Tyrone Crowder and Eric MacLain (All-ACC), offensive tackle Joe Gore, defensive tackle D.J. Reader, and punter Andy Teasdall.

UNC and N.C. State can only imagine what their respective teams might be like if they had kept those players home. Unfortunately, both programs – as well as Duke – have done that kind of imagining for years.

Only once in the past five recruiting classes have North Carolina programs kept more than half of the Rivals.com’s top 250 prospects in state. The 2015 class included eight in-state players among the top 250, and N.C. State landed four of them and UNC got one.

Over the past five recruiting classes, Rivals.com has listed 45 players from North Carolina among its top 250 prospect lists. Of those, only 12 have remained in state. N.C. State landed seven and UNC got five. The only five-star prospect in the bunch to stay home was Charlotte running back Elijah Hood, who rushed for 1,463 yards and 17 touchdowns for UNC this past season.

N.C. State’s progress

“It will always be a goal to recruit and keep the top players in North Carolina at home,” said Dave Doeren, N.C. State’s coach, no doubt speaking for UNC’s Larry Fedora as well. “We have made it a priority and always will.”

Despite that emphasis, N.C. State appears to be the only one of the Big Four programs to have some success landing in-state prospects this year. Of the Wolfpack’s 27 signees, 13 were in state. UNC signed only six of its 26 players from within the state, Wake Forest got four in-state prospects among it 22 and Duke landed three of its class of 21.

Duke and Wake Forest tend to extend their recruiting reach more nationally. But for N.C. State and UNC to harbor any hope of competing on the same level with the Clemsons and Florida States of the ACC, both must better close off the North Carolina borders.

“I feel like the North Carolina schools are going after the top athletes, and I think it’s going to take a big-time recruit like Dexter to stay home and maybe that will have a trickle-down affect with a lot of the top athletes,” Wake Forest High’s Lucas said. “Hopefully, in the next year or two, somebody will get one of the big-time athletes.”

Rivals.com lists only four in-state players among its top 250 prospects in the 2017 class. Of those, UNC has commitments from Jonah Melton, an offensive lineman from Mebane, and Jake Lawler, a defensive end from Charlotte.

Perhaps that signals a start to in-state programs locking down North Carolina in football recruiting.

This story was originally published February 4, 2016 at 1:02 PM with the headline "Morris: NC State, UNC, Duke fight border battle on recruiting."