ACC College Football Recruiting 2011: The Winners and Losers
This article is also featured at All About Sports
With National Signing Day over, recruiting season for 2011 is just about over. This is the time each team's fans think they signed a group of kids that will lead them to winning seasons, bigger bowl games and ultimately a championship or two or three.
Well I'm here to tell you not all classes are the same, and some ACC teams look primed for future success while others might need to figure out what went wrong.
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Winners
Florida State Seminoles
Class Rank: Scout No. 2; Rivals No. 3
Jimbo Fisher just carried over the momentum from the college football season to the recruiting season and signed a MONSTER class. How about this? FSU signed 11 percent of the top 100 players according to Scout. Tim Jernigan was one of the nation's top DTs. James Wilder one of the country's best RBs.
This recruiting class just goes on and on. A couple of more years recruiting like this and Florida State will compete for a national title.
Clemson Tigers
Class Rank: Scout No. 11; Rivals No. 8
Dabo Swinney's coaching ability has been called into question at times, but there's no question the guy can recruit.
The Tigers finished with a flourish nabbing 4-Star LB Tony Steward out of Florida, and 5-Star LB Stephone Anthony on National Signing Day. Clemson's linebackers were a weak spot this year. Swinney fixed that. Jadeveon Clowney the nation's top DE is still a possibility.
Losers
Virginia Tech Hokies
Class Rank: Scout No. 40; Rivals No. 33
Hokie fans are going to argue, "hey we never recruit that well and we dominate the ACC." They may say Beamer maximizes his talent. I will agree to both points, but I will counter with that the Hokies have reached their ceiling recruiting this way. That is why Virginia Tech continually loses to elite level teams, it is called talent.
The Hokies will keep winning 9-11 games a year and be successful, but if they don’t recruit better that is as good as they'll ever be. You know 5-Star Stephone Anthony that we mentioned above? He chose Clemson over Virginia Tech.
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
Class Rank: Scout No. 42; Rivals No. 40
Back in December, it looked like the Jackets would sign a top 20 class, but in the last few weeks the class nose-dived starting with commitment de-commitment of 5-Star DE Stephon Tuitt. Lineman Tre Jackson risked a grey-shirt at Florida State rather than stay committed to Georgia Tech. Jackson ended getting a scholarship to FSU by the way. In all, the Jackets lost five previous commitments in the last four weeks.
Whether it was academics, parents or otherwise causing the de-commitment this was a weak finish. There's some talent here, but the class could have been so much better.
Most Disappointing Class
North Carolina State Wolfpack
Class Rank: Scout No. 73; Rivals N/A
ESPN ranked the NC State the worst in the ACC. With Florida State and Clemson recruiting at such a high level in the ACC Atlantic, this class really puts the Pack behind in terms of talent.
I know Tom O'Brien is system guy, but talent is talent, and the Wolfpack reached on several players. Its ok when you have a few sleepers, but when half your class is like that, you've got a lot of coaching up to do.
NC State Commitments
A couple of other notes on the ACC. Mike London put together a nice top 25 class at Virginia. That's exactly what he needed in year one of recruiting for the Cavs, upgrade the talent level.
Butch Davis didn't let any NCAA investigation slow their recruiting. The Heels put together a top 20 class by both Scout and Rivals.
The rest of the ACC's commitment list is below.
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