UNC football signs its best class in more than a decade

North Carolina coach Mack Brown said he got a little nervous on the eve of football’s early signing period. It was too calm.

That silence was in the form of 17 recruits the Tar Heels signed on Wednesday, who didn’t waiver or have 11th hour regrets. The haul is considered the best in the ACC and ranked No. 8 nationally by 247 Sports.

“We didn’t have the year we wanted and still we weren’t sitting around last night worried about flips, worried about guys backing out on us,” Brown said. “These are very high character families and high character people. And and I didn’t even get a call last night I got nervous because it’s too quiet. Because they all actually did what they told us that we’re going to do.”

Brown has always placed an emphasis on recruiting within the state well, and the Heels got two of the best in defensive tackle Travis Shaw and running back Omarion Hampton, who was named the state’s Gatorade Player of the Year and the Charlotte Observer’s Mr. Football.

In what Brown believed to be a first for his coaching career, every player in the class was a team captain at their respective high schools. Seven of the newest Tar Heels were from Virginia, and Brown said they benefited from coaching changes at Virginia Tech and Virginia. The final piece to the class, defensive back Will Hardy, flipped from being committed to the Cavaliers after head Bronco Mendenhall announced he was stepping down.

Eight players -- Beau Atkinson, Sebastian Cheeks, Trevyon Green, Malaki Hamrick, Conner Harrell, George Pettaway, Zach Rice and Travis Shaw -- all plan on enrolling early in January. There’s even an NCAA rule that allows them to join practice in Chapel Hill as long as their respective schools are out, until the team heads to Charlotte for the Duke’s Mayo Bowl.

It’s not enough time for any of them to pick up the entire playbook, but it is a head start for a group that could have a few players emerge as starters next season. Brown said he can’t wait “to get them in here and and take the next step.”

“We had an okay recruiting class the first year; we have a top 12 recruiting class (in 2021); this is going to be a top 10 recruiting class,” Brown said. “The better players you get, the more games you win. And to be an upper level team like we want to get to, we’ve got to have the best recruits in the country and I’m so proud of this staff that that’s what they’ve done.”

Most of the players committed before the season began, but Carolina’s 6-6 record did not become a reason to reconsider their choices. Pettaway, a running back from Virginia, said he felt like the program was building toward being special.

“Mack Brown has only been there a few years, so he’s got to build those continuous, big time classes where new people can come in each year and are ready to take on those roles,” Pettaway said.

Carolina’s class is the highest since it was No. 10 in 2007. Their class in 1999 was No. 1 overall according to 247 Sports, but Brown believes this current crop could eventually be considered the best.

“The individual ranking, which is more important than the overall ranking right now because we only have 17 members signed, is 91.70, which ranks sixth in the country as far as the productivity of each player,” Brown said. “So I’m really really excited about these guys.”

The two five-star recruits in the class were Rice and Shaw. Rice was the Gatorade Player of the Year in Virginia and ranked the No. 1 offensive tackle in the nation by 247 Sports. Shaw, who played at Greensboro Grimsley High School, was ranked the No. 2 defensive lineman in the nation.

UNC football Class of 2022