Here’s a rundown of where we thing things stand heading into singing day next Wednesday:
• Four-star offensive guard R.J. Adams from Woodbridge (Va.) High has moved up his decision a day and will announce his choice Tuesday. The school will either be Kentucky or NC State. We do not have enough of a vibe to make a firm projection of where Adams will end up, but as we have implied before NC State should like where the trending lines are headed.
• If Adams does end up at Kentucky, our guess is NC State would focus on three-star Anthony Carter from Butler High in Matthews, N.C. As of earlier this week however, we do not think NC State was anticipating signing Carter in December. We have also noted how NC State has done some evaluations on junior college options.
• We think three-star defensive back Joshua Pierre-Louis is going to announce his decision Wednesday. That was his intention as of Friday morning at least, but everything in recruiting is subject to change. It is hard to imagine the speedster at The Benjamin School in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., not picking NC State at this point.
• We’ve noted a few times that it seems like Nebraska is hoping that two-star NC State defensive line commit Pheldarius Payne from Lackawanna College in Scranton, Pa., would wait till February to sign. The Cornhuskers, from what we have gathered, are hitting the junior colleges hard to fill out some needs along the defensive line. Payne is making his official visit to NC State this weekend. We still think odds are good that Payne will end up signing with the Wolfpack next week, but it’s not a guarantee.
• We do not think that three-star linebacker Jayland Parker from Macon (Ga.) Westside High is going to take an official visit to Louisville despite the apparent effort by the Cardinals to get him to do so.
• We’d be pretty surprised if Raleigh native and Bakersfield (Calif.) College defensive back Justin Harrington did not end up at Oklahoma unless the Sooners potentially fill up or something to that affect before next week. Harrington was supposed to visit Oklahoma State this weekend.
• There’s always a chance for a signing day surprise. If you listened to our podcast earlier this week, we talked about how we hinted of a surprise for signing day last year and even had written up a bio for the player — USC linebacker transfer Levi Jones. Ultimately, NC State decided not to announce Jones’ transfer at that time even though it was a done deal.
We can say we plan to write one bio, unless there is a change, just in case about a prospect committed elsewhere that we talked about earlier this week. We will pass along the name at a later date if it does not materialize, which at the moment is what we’re leaning towards being the outcome.
• How many will NC State sign? That’s never been a cut-and-dry number, as we have noted before. Conventional wisdom we hear most is the aim is around 22. It’s important to remember that NC State had so many players enroll early in the 2019 class, a number of whom they could count back towards the 2018 class. That allows them to count 2020 recruits that enroll early back to 2019.
NC State though does have to count three blueshirts it used last year (tight end Kameron Walker, running back Delbert Mimms and long snapper Joe Shimko) for the 2020 class. The bigger number though to watch was the maximum scholarships total of 85. NC State is currently over it by one for next year, but every school in the country will have a handful of attrition between now and fall camp that frees up space.
We noted earlier this week that both sophomore De’Von Graves and redshirt freshman Malik Dunlap, a pair of defensive backs, entered their names into the transfer portal. Dunlap has since withdrawn his name, and it looks like he will be back at NC State. Graves is moving ahead with his transfer.
Some have cited personal reasons for his departure, suggesting he would like to end up somewhere still close to his Appomattox, Va., home. We’ll see if that ends up true (based on some of the schools that we have heard Graves has reached out to we wonder if that’s true though.)
Incidentally, redshirt junior offensive lineman Justin Chase also took his name off the transfer portal, but we do not know if that means he will be back at NC State. It might be that he has already found his new school like defensive end Xavier Lyas (Northern Arizona) or quarterback Matthew McKay (Montana State). Chase is also very involved with his ministry work and it would not stun us if Chase chose to focus on that.
• Four-star offensive guard R.J. Adams from Woodbridge (Va.) High has moved up his decision a day and will announce his choice Tuesday. The school will either be Kentucky or NC State. We do not have enough of a vibe to make a firm projection of where Adams will end up, but as we have implied before NC State should like where the trending lines are headed.
• If Adams does end up at Kentucky, our guess is NC State would focus on three-star Anthony Carter from Butler High in Matthews, N.C. As of earlier this week however, we do not think NC State was anticipating signing Carter in December. We have also noted how NC State has done some evaluations on junior college options.
• We think three-star defensive back Joshua Pierre-Louis is going to announce his decision Wednesday. That was his intention as of Friday morning at least, but everything in recruiting is subject to change. It is hard to imagine the speedster at The Benjamin School in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., not picking NC State at this point.
• We’ve noted a few times that it seems like Nebraska is hoping that two-star NC State defensive line commit Pheldarius Payne from Lackawanna College in Scranton, Pa., would wait till February to sign. The Cornhuskers, from what we have gathered, are hitting the junior colleges hard to fill out some needs along the defensive line. Payne is making his official visit to NC State this weekend. We still think odds are good that Payne will end up signing with the Wolfpack next week, but it’s not a guarantee.
• We do not think that three-star linebacker Jayland Parker from Macon (Ga.) Westside High is going to take an official visit to Louisville despite the apparent effort by the Cardinals to get him to do so.
• We’d be pretty surprised if Raleigh native and Bakersfield (Calif.) College defensive back Justin Harrington did not end up at Oklahoma unless the Sooners potentially fill up or something to that affect before next week. Harrington was supposed to visit Oklahoma State this weekend.
• There’s always a chance for a signing day surprise. If you listened to our podcast earlier this week, we talked about how we hinted of a surprise for signing day last year and even had written up a bio for the player — USC linebacker transfer Levi Jones. Ultimately, NC State decided not to announce Jones’ transfer at that time even though it was a done deal.
We can say we plan to write one bio, unless there is a change, just in case about a prospect committed elsewhere that we talked about earlier this week. We will pass along the name at a later date if it does not materialize, which at the moment is what we’re leaning towards being the outcome.
• How many will NC State sign? That’s never been a cut-and-dry number, as we have noted before. Conventional wisdom we hear most is the aim is around 22. It’s important to remember that NC State had so many players enroll early in the 2019 class, a number of whom they could count back towards the 2018 class. That allows them to count 2020 recruits that enroll early back to 2019.
NC State though does have to count three blueshirts it used last year (tight end Kameron Walker, running back Delbert Mimms and long snapper Joe Shimko) for the 2020 class. The bigger number though to watch was the maximum scholarships total of 85. NC State is currently over it by one for next year, but every school in the country will have a handful of attrition between now and fall camp that frees up space.
•••
We noted earlier this week that both sophomore De’Von Graves and redshirt freshman Malik Dunlap, a pair of defensive backs, entered their names into the transfer portal. Dunlap has since withdrawn his name, and it looks like he will be back at NC State. Graves is moving ahead with his transfer.
Some have cited personal reasons for his departure, suggesting he would like to end up somewhere still close to his Appomattox, Va., home. We’ll see if that ends up true (based on some of the schools that we have heard Graves has reached out to we wonder if that’s true though.)
Incidentally, redshirt junior offensive lineman Justin Chase also took his name off the transfer portal, but we do not know if that means he will be back at NC State. It might be that he has already found his new school like defensive end Xavier Lyas (Northern Arizona) or quarterback Matthew McKay (Montana State). Chase is also very involved with his ministry work and it would not stun us if Chase chose to focus on that.
