Recently the ACC Sports Journal completed major changes to their website and the layout of their print edition. For anyone interested, they are offering a free 30 day trial to their website. You can register by going here:
One cool feature non-subscribers can use on their website is the “Daily Links” page. They provide articles from around the ACC market for each team in the conference. Having been on the internet following ACC sports since 1996~, I think this type of “web run” was actually originated by the creators of this blog. We mentioned The Wolfpack Wire recently who also does something similar.
With tomorrow’s game against Duke and the many discussions of our talent level compared to other programs in the conference, we asked the folks from the ACC Sports Journal to offer one of their recent “subscriber only” articles for free to NC State fans. Each year they look back at the football recruiting classes from four years ago to see how well the classes turned out:
Following his first losing season at N.C. State, Amato for the first time was beginning to feel some heat. The year before, during Philip Rivers’ senior season, the team had a relatively disappointing 8-5 campaign, when it was expected to compete for the ACC championship.
The loud whispers were out there. Can Amato survive the post-Rivers era? Amato heard them. He also felt he answered them when State inked a 24-player class that was ranked on the fringe of the top 25 by most recruiting services.
“It’s not a bad class for a sinking ship, I’ll tell you that,†Amato said that day. “We are really pleased with what we got.â€Ultimately, though, the ship was sinking on Amato. He would never get to see the results of the class, which was supposed to address major needs along both lines. Fourteen linemen were inked, split evenly between the offensive and defensive sides.
Remember that Amato quote?
-Originally, the 2005 recruiting class was ranked tied for 5th in the ACC (B-) by the ACCSJ with a consensus national ranking of 30th. It is important to note that the ACCSJ takes into account academic attrition in the Fall semester which often plagued Chuck Amato recruiting classes while the national rankings do not.
-Duke was also given a B- and had a consensus national ranking of 38th. So for the most part Duke’s class was on par with NC State’s especially when you take into account that Amato’s class lost three players due to academic issues (Doug Palmer, Brandon Jeffries, and Chad Green).
-In measuring how the classes turned out, the ACCSJ gives 10 points per starter, 10 points for each all-ACC player and candidates, and 5 points for each 2nd stringer. Duke’s class ranked 8th in the ACC with NC State placing 9th. Both classes ended up with a C+ grade and averaged 5.6 points per player (as did TOB’s class of 2005 at Boston College).
-Check this link for a listing of the entire class.
-Click this link for an indepth article with Amato quotes and the ACCSJ’s breakdown of the class.
We would like to thank the folks from the ACC Sports Journal for working with us in providing this kind of quality, detailed information to NC State fans.
