UNC Dominates Football Recruiting Effort In ACC
ByLEWHEGE
The 1963 colleKe football season is five weeks
away, and as usual, the top recruiting team in the
ACC was North Carolina.
In recent seasons, only Clemson has managed to
hold its own with UNC in recruiting. Clemson was
placed on probation last winter and had its worst
recruiting campaign in five years, leaving Carolina
as the king of the hill in recruiting.
Why do the Tar Heels outrecruit Siate, Duke,
Wake Forest and its other ACC rivals every year?
There are several reasons for this trend.
First, the UNC program has stability. Bill Dooley
established that in his tenure as Tar Heel coach, and
with the exception of one off year, Dick Crum has
continued that characteristic of the UNC program.
By contrast, State has changed coaches four
times in the last few years. After Lou Holtz turned
the Wolfpack program around, he vanished. Bo
Rein brought stability to the State program and won
the school's last ACC title in 1979. He resigned and
took the LSU job, only to die in an airplane crash
soon after. At the suggestion of Holtz, State then
hired Monte Kiffin (instead of Pat Dye). Kiffin was
a disaster and wrecked the program that Holtz and
Rein worked hard to build. State then hired Miami
(Ohio) coach Tom Reed, it's fourth head coach in
seven years.
Duke s record is worse than State s. The Blue
Devils tolerated Mike McGee for too long. After
years of poor coaching management, McGee was
fired and former Elon coach Red Wilson was han
ded tte job. The Devils made vast strides in its
program, and even accomplished the miracle of
beating Carolina last year. For this achievement,
Wilson was fired. Steve Sloan was a loser at
Mississippi, not the worst situation in the country to
be in. In his infinite wisdom, Duke AD Tom Butters
hired Sloan.
Wake Forest occasionally pulls an upset or two,
but Ihe norm for the Deacons is a record in the 3-8
range. A couple of years back, former coach John
Mackovic gave eight "win one for the Gipper"
speeches, and the Deacs lucked their way to an 8-3
rec<rd. After that brief period of pride, the Wake
Forest program returned to normalcy. The
Deacons get whipped in recruiting each year and
that will continue to lead to changes in coaches
eveiy three or four seasons.
W;th State, Duke, and Wake Forest mired in ad
ministrative problems—the door is wide open for
Canlina to dominate the state in recruiting.
Acded to this fact is the beauty of the UNC cam
pus. The State grounds pale when compared with
those in Chapel Hill. Duke and Wake Forest both
hav< beautiful campuses, but those two don't have
the ii-state recruiting clout of UNC and State.
Eist Carolina must be mentioned in any
discission of in-state recruiting, since the Pirates
get some of the best players down East. When Dye
coached the Bucs, they were a solid football team on
the rise. But Ed Emory is no Pat Dye, and the ECU
program is floundering. It will be many years
before the ECU program reaches the level of those
at State and Carolina.
While Carolina has benefitted from the ineptitude
of Monte Kiffin at State, the future doesn't look as
rosey now that Tom Reed is the State coach. For
every year that Kiffin was at State, their program
fell behind UNC's by two years.
At the time Carolina hired Crum, State had the
opportunity to dash ahead of the UNC program.
They blew it and have paid for their mistake dearly.
It will take Reed four or five years to bring the
Pack program up to par with Carolina's. Crum is
now established in Chapel Hill, but within a year or
so, he will have a battle on his hands in recruiting
against peed. Look for State to return to Ohio for
talent, where the Pack got center Jim Ritcher and
some others a few seasons back.
Duke fans shouldn't expect any miracles with
Sloan. He's not a bad coach—not as good as Wilson
however. Sloan was ticketed to replace Bear Bryant
at Alabama (Sloan's alma mater.) But his poor
record at Ole Miss eliminated him from the Bama
job. Duke is a step down from Ole Miss, make no
mistake about that. A1 Groh will hang around Wake
Forest for a few seasons, then go the way of the
other Deacon coaches.
THE TOP RECRUITS: Carolina got the top QB in
Mark Maye of Charlotte, but also signed All
America lineman Donnie Wallace (240) of Everetts.
The Heels got qua]jfy depth in recruiting, including
TB Norman Becton of Cove City and TB William
Humes of Asheville. UNC also got DB Howard
Feggins of South Hill, Va., and LB Noel McEachem
of Fayetteville. The Heels class was tops in the
league.
State got FB Bobby Crumpler of Newton Grove,
DT Sandy Kea of Clinton, and DB Haywood Jeffries
of Greensboro—all blue chip players. The Pack
desperately needs a quarterback and signed four,
including Bruce Porter of Findlay, Ohio. Transfer
QB Bob Guidice of Phoenix, Ariz., may start.
After three seasons of instability with Tol Avery
and others, State has a horde of quarterback's from
which only one is needed to give them stability.
They need one like Scott Smith, who led the Pack to
the ACC title in '79.
Ncrlliia product Joe Greene, who starred at
Chowan last season, signed with the Wolfpack.
Greene is a 191-pound tailback with speed. Of
course, State will rely on a fellow named Joe Mcin
tosh for the yards this year.
Wake Forest got ace wide receiver James Brim, a
6-3, 190-pound Ail-American from Mt. Airy. Senior
QB Gary Schofield will look to Brim often this year.
If Schofield gets hurt, Wake Forest is in trouble.
Scott Roberts is a top LB from Asheville. Other than
those two, the Deacs got its usual assortment of
bargain basement leftovers.
Duke had to battle a coaching change and its stiff
entry requirements. All of the Duke recruits can
work calculus problems, but can they play football?
Tops among the new Blue Devils is Pat Love, a 270
pound all-State lineman from Portland, Texas. Sol
Gresen, 265-pound lineman from Las Vegas is
another blue chipper to sign with Duke. Both want
to be surgeons.
The only blue chip back inked by Duke was RB
Mike Peacock (195) of Clifton Park, N.Y., who led
his prep team to the state title last year. Peacock
lacks speed and that may place in the "average"
category in college.
OTHER ACC SCHOOLS: Outside the Big Four,
Clemson overcame its criminal record to make a
decent showing this year. That's no surprise. The
Tigers will get the same type of player, whether
they win 10 games or two. Any player that's going to
Clemson probably hasn't read the papers anyway.
Top Tiger recruit is DB Bo Holloman of Myrtle
Beach, who verbally committed to South Carolina
on a Monday, then signed with Clemson three days
later. QB Randy Anderson of Cowpens pulled the
same stunt. WR Terrance Rouhlac of Jacksonville,
Fla. didn't trust Florida coach Charley Pell and
inked with the Paws.
As usual, Georgia beat the daylights out of
Georgia Tech in in-state recruiting. The Jackets got
the hamburger in Georgia and eight players from
outside the state. Tops is WR Kevin Arthur of Cin
cinnati Moeller and WR Toby Pearson of
Morristown, Tenn., the player of the year in that
state.
Virginia made strides in its program under coach
George Welsh. The Cavaliers got QB Kevin
Ferguson of Appomattox and WR Kevin Gould of
Hampton, two blue chippers. Virginia signed 19
linemen, but most are too light to play major
college football. It will take years and steroids to
build this crop up to the level of those who play for
UNC and Clemson.
Maryland had an off year, but got a few huge
linemen. The Terps failed to get a QB to replace
Boomer Esiason, who'll graduate next year. It looks
lean for UM.