The Tar Heel football team inked 19 signees, eight four-star players and landed the state’s No. 1 player on National Signing Day, but it’s the 25th-ranked recruiting class’ fresh defensive leadership and vision that stole the show at Kenan Football Center Wednesday afternoon.
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It’s easy to see why UNC head coach Larry Fedora and newly named defensive coordinator Gene Chizik hit it off.
They both share a championship vision.
“Being a small part of a championship idea is big to me. That can be done here or this probably wouldn’t be the right fit for me. I love the challenge of where we have to go. Larry and I have talked about that in-depth. I’m all-in,” Coach Chizik says.
Coach Chizik cited ‘quality of life’ as a major factor when weighing whether to come out of coaching retirement and leave his cushy job as an analyst on ESPN. Chapel Hill fit that bill for his family.
But he says having the chance to work with Coach Fedora didn’t hurt his decision any either.
“You throw in the fact my respect for Larry…he’s a very productive offensive guy and mind. I’ve got a lot of respect for Larry. If I ever said I would go back and be an assistant for somebody and work for somebody, it would be a guy like Larry,” Coach Chizik says.
It was a rather predictable day around the Tar Heel football offices. But that was just fine for Coach Fedora. The Carolina skipper says no Signing Day surprises meant a happy day for the entire UNC coaching staff.
“It’s an exciting day for our staff, the players, their families and the fans. It was a lot of fun. It was a day that we kind of knew what was going to happen going into it – not a lot of surprises for us. It was a great day,” Coach Fedora says.
The successful UNC recruiting class that included seven players from the Tar Heel state and four athletes from the Sunshine State didn’t come easy.
Coach Fedora says all the negative attacks from competing schools on the recruiting trail definitely got old, but he was proud of how the coaching staff overcame the road block and won the trust of their new signees.
“I think our staff did an exceptional job. The negative recruiting this year was at an all-time high. We spend a lot of our time, unfortunately, not selling what the University has to offer and defending against the accusations and the stories that are made up,” Coach Fedora says.
Without a doubt, the star attraction of the nineteen latest additions to the football program is six-foot, six-inch, 260-pound defensive end Jalen Dalton. The top-ranked N.C. product from West Forsyth High School enrolled at UNC in January and will be looking to make an immediate impact on Saturdays this fall.
Coach Fedora says Dalton immersed himself completely in campus life throughout the recruiting process.
“Keith Gilmore was the lead recruiter on him and did a great job building a tremendous relationship with him. Jalen was a guy that was on this campus probably 18-20 times. Sometimes, he didn’t even tell us he was coming. He just showed up. He got to see everything that we were. There was no show put on for him,” Coach Fedora says.
Other notable names to look out for include 310-pound defensive tackle Aaron Crawford from Ashburn, Virginia and promising wide receiver Juval Mollette, who’s listed as the No. 1 receiver in North Carolina.
But for freshly-minted defensive assistant John Papuchis, the work for 2016 and 2017 has already started.
“I was out last week on the road. Most of that was junior recruiting. I spent most of my time with the 2016 and 2017 kids,” Coach Papuchis says.
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