Tar Heels ink 25 recruits on Signing Day

In what is becoming almost a tradition for North Carolina’s football program, head coach Butch Davis rang in another successful National Signing Day — but this year, he did it with a degree of difficulty.

Despite the specter of NCAA rulings clouding the Tar Heels’ football future, prospective players still sent in the national letters of intent in droves as 25 recruits signed a commitment Wednesday to play at UNC.

These weren’t just any 25 high school football players. Twenty were ranked three stars or above by Scout.com and five were in the Scout.com Top 100, including one five-star surprise in 6-foot-5, 265 lb. defensive tackle Delvon Simmons.

Simmons only started listing UNC on his college list recently and went on an official visit to Chapel Hill just this weekend, but on Signing Day, he sent his letter of intent to Kenan Stadium.

“I won’t tell you that it was a slam-dunk 100 percent that we knew emphatically that he was going to sign, but we felt over the last three or four days that we had a great chance,” Davis said. “When he came back from his official visit, that night he called up (offensive coordinator) John Shoop and said, ‘I know where I want to go to school, I want to go to Carolina.’”

Save Simmons, UNC didn’t get many surprises on Signing Day. But they didn’t lose many commitments, either.

First-year recruiting coordinator Allen Mogridge was able to haul in a top-20 class even after former recruiting coordinator John Blake resigned amid speculation of his involvement in the NCAA investigation.

In the cutthroat world of recruiting, any sign of weakness can erode a university’s recruiting class to the core, but UNC warded that off by being up front with all prospective recruits, Davis said.

“First and foremost, we were always honest with the kids that we recruited,” Davis said. “We told them exactly what transpired in August and September, we told them absolutely everything that we knew. Things that had transpired, and we never tried to paint a picture of something that wouldn’t be realistic.”

Davis said other coaching staffs engaged in negative recruiting, but that for the most part had no adverse effect on UNC, as the program did not lose many commitments once the NCAA investigation came out in the summer.

“For the most part, the significant part of this class had made a commitment that they were going to come to North Carolina before the start of the season,” Davis said. “Very few of them ever wavered or vacillated.”

The Tar Heels brought in five early enrollees who signed their letter of intent on Wednesday.

Each one attending the press conference brushed off questions about reconsidering his commitment because of the investigation.

“When everything came out, you kind of wanted to know what’s going on because that’s the school you committed to,” tailback Travis Riley said. “We talked to coach Davis, he came to my house, and he was really reassuring. He made me more comfortable.”

Some of the recruits even found interesting ways to combat the negative rhetoric from other college coaches.

“I just remember countless times I was on the phone with coaches,” wide receiver T.J. Thorpe said. “As soon as they’d start talking about Carolina, just put the phone down, walk downstairs, get a snack, come back up, still talking.”

Contact the Sports Editor sat sports@dailytarheel.com.