Editor’s Note:  Since my previous article talked about UNC’s (probably) shady recruiting.  I figured a logical followup would be Richard Hefner’s (Pitt-Cocks Fan) writeup on their actual team.  Very data heavy for you numbers guys.  Enjoy & feel free to draw your own conclusions.

 

North Carolina

A Way to Early Look at Roster Changes

 

The object of this series of articles is to discuss & show the roster changes for the upcoming 2020 season. It will not be a player by player review.  These articles will review All ACC team player losses/returners, Transfer Portal activity & recruiting results. If there is time, I may circle back to teams after the spring practice Transfer Portal rush.

I will be using Rivals recruiting data but 24/7 transfer portal activity. I was not able to find a Rivals transfer database but did find a 24/7 site. https://247sports.com/Season/2020-Football/TransferPortal/

So, any star/points ranking related to the portal are 24/7’s not Rivals.

Note: The 24/7 data base I am using runs from 8/1/19 until 7/31/20. Players who left a team after that start time are included. A Player who transferred to a team are included even if they played during the 2019 season (Ex.-John Petrishen) or could be a walk on. On my own, I do not include any transfer portal entry who was not ranked coming out of H.S.  or was classified as a 2-star unless I can easily verify that he was a major contributor.

Let’s get started.

North Carolina is in the 2’nd year of Mack Brown’s 2’nd tenure at North Carolina. This is his first true recruiting class. The class was an excellent one. Rivals has their 25-man class ranked as the 16’th best. It included 9 4-stars including one Rivals top 50 and another 4 or 5 who made the Rivals top 250. Like Florida State, the Tarheels class averaged 3.28 stars which translate to a 3.62 3-star.

Per Rivals, below is the 25 recruits by position. Highlighted is the most/tied for that position in the ACC for 2020.

This is a snapshot of the last 5 years of recruiting:

For Tex, this is the number of 5.7’s and above for the last 4 recruiting periods.

North Carolina record over the last 5 seasons:

 

2015 11-1 Conference Championship loss, Bowl Loss 11-3

2016 8-4 Bowl loss 8-5, 2017 3/9, 2018 2/9 (game scheduled with UCF canceled due to hurricane.)  2019 6-6 Bowl win 7-6

At this time, North Carolina has not signed anyone off the portal.

North Carolina has 6 returning (covering 7 position) All ACC honorees:

Note: The Class shown is for the 2019 Season. For the 2020 season Jr. are now Seniors, So. are now Juniors.

Sam Howell is the jewel of the returning honorees. 3’rd team QB behind Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence & Virginia’s Bryce Perkins. He was a true freshman in 2019.

The above was a brief snapshot of who North Carolina added & returned for the upcoming 2020 season.

Who did they lose from the 2019 season?

North Carolina lost 4 All ACC honorees:

Looks like a hole to be filled in the interior of North Carolina’s defensive line. But they only recruited 1 DT in 2020. They did recruit 5 DE’s. Is the plan to have somebodies getting up & eating PB&J sandwiches twice a night?

North Carolina had no early entries to the NFL draft.

North Carolina has 9 players entering the “Transfer Portal”:

Just one of the 9 has found a P5 team to call his own. I regret not finding & tracking the portal activity for last year. It would be interesting to see the effect of new coaching hires & what ever is going on at Virginia Tech.

North Carolina’s future looks bright for the next two years. Howell at QB will keep the offense in the game. Will their defense improve enough to win the Coastal?

From Chris Peak’s Rivals site – Panther-lair

https://pittsburgh.rivals.com/news/around-the-coastal-the-north-carolina-tar-heels

I didn’t do a review of Pitt but here is Chris Peak’s review of Pitt.

https://duke.rivals.com/news/around-the-coastal-the-pittsburgh-panthers