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War Room (June 12)

Matt Carter

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Aug 23, 2004
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NC State football recruiting has definitely picked up over the past month, and should continue some momentum in the near future. Even before the announcement from three-star linebacker Caden Fordham from Jacksonville (Fla.) Bolles, sources felt that NC State was “close” with two-star safety Sean Brown from Hough High in Cornelius, N.C., and three-star offensive guard/center Lyndon Cooper from Carrollton (Ga.) High.

Brown may be making his announcement in the next week or so, some have told us.

The offer to junior college safety Rakeim Ashford from Jones County JC in Ellisville, Miss., this week signifies to us the growing realization that is a position of need going forward, especially since the Pack knows that it is in good shape with Brown.

We will roll out our third version of the mock classes over the weekend, and for now we are predicting two safeties, but it would not surprise us to see that number stretch to three.

We would also not be stunned if NC State is done at corner unless someone like Javon Bullard from Milledgeville (Ga.) Baldwin High or Kani Walker from Douglasville (Ga.) Douglas County High were to try to commit.

•••

One update to the top 50 (which will likely be reduced to a smaller number going forward) is that three-star offensive tackle Andrew Canelas from Leesville Road High in Raleigh will officially fall off the list. We had confirmation this week that NC State does not have a committable offer out to Canelas at the moment. He is more likely to end up at a mid-major or Ivy League program.

If NC State lands Cooper, we expect that they will limit their focus on the offensive line to in-state targets Yousef Mugharbil from Murphy (N.C.) High, Michael Gonzalez from Sun Valley High in Monroe and Diego Pounds from Raleigh Millbrook.

Pounds is one of the last three remaining Wake County products we know about at the moment for NC State, joining linebacker Jabril McNeill from Sanderson High in Raleigh and safety Chase Hattley from Panther Creek High in Cary.

McNeill’s older brother Alim McNeill, a junior defensive tackle, is working to push his brother to Raleigh, but it’s worth noting that it is not out of the question that with a strong season Alim could work himself into an early NFL Draft candidate, and Jabril’s recruitment has been more national than we originally anticipated/knew about.

•••

One reason that may have explained Louisville’s late push on Fordham: his father Todd Fordham played offensive line in the NFL for 10 seasons, including from 1997-02 with the Jacksonville Jaguars. In 2000, former NC State offensive line coach Dwayne Ledford, now the offensive coordinator at Louisville, was on the Jaguars roster as an offensive lineman.

Ledford is also familiar with recruiting Jacksonville, as he handled that area at both Appalachian State and NC State.

Bolles head coach Matt Toblin noted that Fordham relied on his father and his father’s football friends who were in college football to make his decision. Putting two-plus-two together, one could see where the Ledford connection may have led to what was a few weeks delay in Fordham committing to the Wolfpack.

It is worth noting too that this is not a case of Louisville backing off Fordham. Sources indicated that Louisville was recruiting him right up to when he finally decided for good to pick the Wolfpack, and perhaps the difference was Fordham was able to visit Raleigh and never saw Louisville in person.

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The annual football previews were recently released in early June. One of the consistent favorite features in the annual previews are the anonymous quotes from opposing coaches. While it’s hard to tell who may have said what, the cloak of anonymity gives the coaches a platform to provide some juicy quotes. Here is what opposing coaches had to say about NC State according to Athlon Sports:

“They could be in trouble. There’s some bad mojo around the program. They’ve turned over a lot of people in the building. This is the job people expect to open in the league.”

“They’re very physical on the line, and that’s the identity here. They must preach that to the kids because on film it looks like physicality is more important than technique or scheme. The wide receivers are OK, but no one stands out. The play-calling was uninspired; they could use some creativity here because they aren’t going to out-talent the top-half teams.”

“Defensively they’re interesting. They ran a 3-3 stack a year ago, you need good corners for that which they had, then they went in Tampa 2 and couldn’t stop anyone running.”

“They’re not doing well in recruiting; that’s something the rest of the conference has noticed. It used to be that they would be able to fight for any kid that wasn’t a national prospect; now they’re getting shut out as soon as UNC or Clemson starts recruiting, let alone an SEC school.”

“We saw a lot of contributors on their defense in the portal. That’s caused some suspicion.”

“Dave [Doeren] was a guy who almost had an SEC job, and now it looks like he won’t be able to keep it together. They’re far from those nine-win teams. If they make a move, it’s a job a lot of coaches would jump at. You can figure it out there.”

While most of the anonymous quotes have a negative tone for teams coming off losing records, it’s interesting to get a candid perspective from rival coaches around the league.
 
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