With signing day less than 24 hours away, college football recruiting will take center stage this week. To its credit, the Charlotte Observer who traditionally gives us LOTS of things to criticize ran two particularly interesting articles today focused on college football recruiting complete with a detailed budget of the schools that can be seen by clicking here.:
Carolinas Schools Spend Generously to Woo Recruits
and
Area Colleges Rollout Red Carpet for Recruits
Each school itemizes in its own way, so it’s impossible to proclaim a Carolinas recruiting budget champion. But North Carolina ($449,347) and Clemson ($401,083) each spent more than $400,000 and South Carolina ($283,505) and N.C. State ($243,462) more than $200,000 in 2006-07.
East Carolina spent $148,412, and Football Championship Subdivision champion Appalachian State spent $45,000, according to data provided to the Observer.
The NCAA limits schools to 25 scholarships in a class. That means some Carolinas schools in 2006-07 spent more than $10,000 per signee. North Carolina spent $18,722 per signee in a class of 24.
NC State and South Carolina each spent approximately $245k and $285k, respectively, on recruiting this year. In light of their similarity to sister schools Clemson and UNC-CH, one can only wonder why/how the Tarheels could outspend the Wolfpack by almost $200k and the Tigers outspend the Gamecocks by about $150k?
Clemson’s amount is a little understandable as the cost of travel in and out of the more remote area is going to be more expensive. Additionally, they provided a detailed budget that shows that the bulk of the difference also comes from $93.7k charged by the University for the use of the University’s airplane. At other schools, private supporters sometimes ‘donate’ time and the use of their private aircraft to coaches.
At UNC-CH some of the differences are less clear. The Tarheels must fly first class to Maui as their travel expenditures more than doubled NC State’s $193,.9k to $89k.7k. Additionally, Carolina spent more than 33% of NC State’s entire recruiting budget ($87.2k) on ambiguously mysterious “Miscellaneous Services and Obligations”.
Recruits get treated like royalty when they make official visits. Throughout January, recruiting hosts throughout the nation have dined (but pledged not to wine) top high school athletes who will choose a college on national signing day Wednesday.
Records of budgets for Carolinas public colleges for big recruiting weekends in January 2007 show schools put prospects and their parents in comfortable hotels and fed them well during visits.
On the weekend of Jan. 12-14, 2007, N.C. State’s prospects dined on surf and turf ($58 per person) at Rey’s Restaurant on Friday night. They ate barbecue at The Q Shack ($9.75) for lunch Saturday before a catered dinner at the Vaughn Towers suites at Carter-Finley Stadium.
At North Carolina, recruits and their hosts dined at steakhouses such as Ruth’s Chris or Bin 54. “The royal carpet is laid out, and it’s really nice,” said North Carolina safety Deunta Williams, who recommends the surf and turf at Bin 54.
As we shared with you before, the Charlotte Observer has struggled with their coverage of RJ Mattes, one of the top recruits in the state who lives right in the Observer’s backyard in Concord. Well, they found a way to work Mattes into this piece with a call-out box titled, “Top-rated recruit makes the rounds”
Mattes chose NC State as having the “best facilities” which has obviously become a sources of pride for the program. He said, “Everything is centralized. You’ve got all your needs right there — training table, the training room, weight room, locker rooms, everything is right in one place.”
The item to which I wanted to call the most attention was his comments regarding the “Best Hotel”.
North Carolina, Carolina Inn. “It was just an old-time hotel in the middle of campus. They gave out cookies every morning. … The beds were so comfortable, and the (flat screen) TVs were amazing.”
I don’t disagree with Mattes’ selection. Especially when you compare that Carolina Inn to the Embassy Suites in Crabtree Valley that NC State uses because we have no other decent option any closer to campus. Although you will never get an administrator at NC State other than Marye Ann Fox to understand it…and you certainly won’t get anyone to take a stand on any issue that isn’t the status quo…the continued void created by the lack of a top-notch hotel at/on NC State’s campus continues to be a major detriment to our entire University.
This extends far beyond the insignificant impact on athletics recruiting and is a problem that NC State desperately needs to solve despite the ridiculous self-serving lobby of the hotel industry.
For NC State recruiting junkies, WRAL is already proclaiming our recruiting class a success even as we wait on one or two final potential commitments. Calling Leon Mackey!!! This previous blog entry and the links contained within it can serve as some background on some of our thoughts.
“It’s very important to fill our needs,†(recruiting coordinator Jerry) Petercuskie said. “We have 85 scholarships, and people think that’s a lot. But that’s a lot less than it used to be back in the old days. Coach O’Brien does a great job in relation to filling our needs. He’ll look two to three years down the road to the number of players at each position and the number of players we need to recruit at each position.â€
O’Brien wasted no time with addressing one of State’s biggest needs — the offensive line. Already, N.C. State has received commitments from five offensive linemen, including R.J. Mattes out of Concord Robinson. Mattes, listed at 6 feet 6 and 260 pounds, is considered to be the No. 11 offensive tackle prospect in the nation according to Scout.com
