Which ACC Coaches Win the Most Recruiting Battles?

 

We can talk about “turf” and “building walls around the state”. We can rank each year’s classes. When it comes down to it, though, recruiting is about selling your program better than the guy up the street. 

Which coaches in the ACC are best at that skill? In other words, put overall class strength aside and answer a simple question: When Dave Doeren and Larry Fedora both go after the same prospect, who signs him?  

To answer the question, we looked at the “offers” database for the major recruiting sites and calculated wins and losses. For instance, UNC signed four-star running back Elijah Hood in February. He had offers from 10 other ACC schools, meaning Larry Fedora earned a win over Clemson, Duke, FSU, Georgia Tech, NC State, Notre Dame, Syracuse, Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Wake Forest.

On the flip side, Fedora got tagged with a loss when he offered Troy Vincent, only to see the four-star safety sign with State. NC State coach Dave Doeren also earned wins against five other ACC schools that offered Vincent. 

We ran the numbers for every recruit that signed with an ACC school over the last three seasons (or, for 2015, gave an ACC school a verbal commitment). Here are the standings: 

2013

 

Win

Loss

Pct

Va Tech

39

13

0.750

Notre Dame

43

17

0.717

Clemson

49

27

0.645

Pitt

28

18

0.609

Virginia

48

31

0.608

UNC

42

29

0.592

Ga Tech

30

22

0.577

Miami

33

30

0.524

Maryland

29

29

0.500

FSU

26

29

0.473

Duke

18

25

0.419

Syracuse

17

25

0.405

Louisville

16

29

0.356

NC State

20

45

0.308

Wake

15

36

0.294

Boston College

1

49

0.020

NC State, with Doeren getting a full year to recruit, and FSU, in the midst of a national championship season, saw the biggest jumps in the 2014 recruiting season. 

 

Win

Loss

Pct

Change

Notre Dame

56

15

0.789

up 1

Va Tech

56

30

0.651

down 1

FSU

58

35

0.624

up 7

UNC

72

52

0.581

up 2

Clemson

44

32

0.579

down 2

NC State

61

47

0.565

up 8

Maryland

36

36

0.500

up 2

Virginia

40

47

0.460

down 3

Miami

37

44

0.457

down 1

Pitt

22

29

0.431

down 6

Duke

21

30

0.412

none

Wake Forest

24

38

0.387

up 3

Georgia Tech

28

50

0.359

down 6

Syracuse

21

43

0.328

down 2

Boston College

17

40

0.298

up 1

Louisville

17

42

0.288

down 3

And with a long way to go until 2015’s signing day, here’s a look at the verbal commitment won-loss records so far. 

 

Win

Loss

Pct

FSU

27

3

0.900

Clemson

35

11

0.761

Va Tech

9

3

0.750

Miami

12

7

0.632

UNC

20

14

0.588

Notre Dame

7

5

0.583

Ga Tech

3

9

0.250

NC State

1

12

0.077

Syracuse

0

1

0.000

Pitt

0

3

0.000

Virginia

0

5

0.000

Maryland

0

6

0.000

Boston College

0

6

0.000

Wake Forest

0

8

0.000

Duke

0

10

0.000

Louisville

0

11

0.000