Rivals has updated their 2016 rankings for North Carolina. It now includes their evaluations from the 2014 high school season and has been expended to a TOP 40. There have been some significant changes. Here is where the current Deac94 Big Board member now rank (rankings are OVERALL ranking in the state). As a reminder, I exclude players if I judgmentally conclude that Wake has no realistic shot at getting a commitment from them (i.e. if they don’t mention Wake at all in interviews)
#8 RB Jordon Brown (Southern Durham HS / Durham, NC) – Kendall Hinton’s teammate, but a longshot for Wake Forest IMO by I’m keeping him on the Board for now.
#9 WR Cornell Powell (Rose HS / Greenville, NC) – He will probably come off the Board on the next update as I think Wake is falling too far behind
#15 LB Julian Okwara (Ardrey Kell HS / Charlotte, NC) – just recently offered by Wake
#16 RB Tre Harbison (Crest HS / Shelby, NC) – TOP TARGET FOR WAKE
#17 ATH Thaddeus Moss (Victory Christian HS / Charlotte, NC) - just recently offered by Wake. Son of Randy Moss. Very likely a TE or DE at the college level.
#21 WR/RB Moe Neal (Forestview HS / Gastonia, NC) - TOP TARGET FOR WAKE
#23 RB Kennedy McCoy (North Davidson HS / Lexington, NC) – UNC and N.C. State are early leaders
#25 DT Christian Colon (Independence HS / Charlotte, NC) – I had considered him a top target for Wake until he was offered by Notre Dame.
#30 QB Jamie Newman (Graham HS / Graham, NC) – no Wake Forest offer yet because he is a QB. Likely on Coach R’s list of QBs that he will evaluate
#33 WR/ATH Derion Slade (West Forsyth HS / Clemmons, NC)
#35 RB Cade Carney (Davie HS / Mocksville, NC)
A few notes / thoughts:
I have been looking at some research that one of the posters on a premium UNC board has been doing. He has put in a lot of work into developing more advanced ratings for players (to replace the frustrating 2-star, 3-star system). One of my takeaways from looking at his work is that he thinks that the number of players in North Carolina that are roster-worthy at the Power 5 conference level is typically around 25 per year. After that he considers players to be borderline Power 5 conference prospects.
There are a lot of players from Charlotte-area and the Piedmont Triad area on the list and not many players from the Research Triangle area that Nyheim Hines proved again to be a very challenging place to recruit (although we did pull Kendall Hinton out of that area).
Since Rivals began ranking players in North Carolina in 1998, Wake Forest has landed commitments from only 3 players ranked in the top 20: AJ Marshall, Quan Rucker (#19 in 2009) and 2015 commit Lee Autry (#20)