December NC State recruiting update: One week from signing day

For those of you who do not know, the NCAA added a December signing period for football players. It is December 20 through December 22 and you can expect all committed players to sign. There is still a signing day in February, but the majority of prospects will sign next week. As far as I know, none of our currently committed players are looking around, but if they do not sign next week then that is definitely not good.

Devin Hayes and Daevon Robinson both decommitted around the same time that Dave Doeren was courted by Tennessee, but it is my understanding that those were coming either way, and Doeren flirting with Tennessee didn’t have an impact on their decision. Hayes committed to FAU and I think Robinson is still uncommitted and we are still recruiting him, but I highly doubt he comes here. (Emeka Emezie is the only player I remember who decommitted and then re-committed to the Pack).

Our list of remaining targets is pretty small. I’m not sure the exact numbers but I think we are looking to take 2 o-lineman, a tight end, a secondary guy and maybe one more. The guys I know that we want are Jovaughn Gwyn, Tanner Ingle, Cary Angeline and Kahric Belle. Other than that, I’m honestly not sure who else we are looking at. It’ll be interesting to see where the board expands to in the next couple weeks. Darrion Jones and Aaron Maddox were both JUCO guys who we wanted, but both committed to Colorado yesterday.

Gwyn is visiting South Carolina this week after visiting the Pack two weeks ago and his decision will be either the Pack or Gamecocks. He’s super quiet and could make his decision next week or in February. By all accounts this is an extremely close race. He’s probably our most important remaining target.

Ingle was committed to Tennessee, but then opened up his recruitment after Butch Jones was fired. He visited State on December 2nd and recently officially decommitted from Tennessee (apparently that is different from opening up your recruitment). The Pack has been thought to be the leader since he opened up his recruitment, and he would be a nice addition to the State secondary. He’s an undersized corner who will likely play nickel and also has the ability to be a Nyheim Hines replacement on special teams.

Angeline is a tight end who is transferring from Southern Cal and visited State for a game (Clemson I think). I honestly know nothing else. Belle is an offensive lineman who we’ve been connected to for a while, and I think he is visiting this coming weekend.

Taiyon Palmer recently decommitted from Duke and then received an offer from us. He is a four-star, top-300 recruit, but his offer list is not what you would expect. His best offer is Virginia Tech and also has offers from UVA, Minnesota, Purdue and other similar schools. I have no idea how much interest there is, so we will see if State ramps up the interest and gets him on campus.

State currently has the 23rd ranked recruiting class in the country. Staying in the top 25 is certainly a realistic goal for this class.

I’ve seen different reports of who is enrolling early but as far as I know, Payton Wilson, Chris Dunn, De’Von Graves, Joe Babros and Kishawn Miller (both JUCO guys) are all joining the team in January. Hopefully we can add some more guys to that list in the next couple weeks.