Chuck Amato and the N.C. State football coaching staff had 20 letters come through their fax machine Wednesday as National Signing Day brought in a group highlighted by speedy receivers and defensive backs.
The Wolfpack coaching staff signed 10 receivers and defensive backs, and inked at least one player for every position.
“We met the needs we wanted,” Amato said. “We needed skill and we signed a lot of skill between the defensive backs and wide receivers.”
Highlighted by playmakers such as Lamarcus Bond of Ahoskie, N.C., and DeAndre Morgan, of Riviera Beach, Fla., the receivers were characterized by Amato as big and fast.
“If you go all the way down to Lamarcus who’s 5-foot-9, all the way up to 6-foot-4 and everywhere in between, they’re all playmakers,” Amato said. “If you clump those skilled people together [there are] 10 of them there, who can play a multitude of positions.”
State signed a quarterback out of Lexington, Ky., in 6-foot-2, 195-pound Justin Burke.
Amato said his coaching staff wanted Burke to enroll early at State to get more practice, but he decided against it as he wanted to finish out his high school’s basketball season first.
“I told him I hope it’s that way four years from now, ‘If you’re an All-American, that you stick around for your senior year,'” Amato said.
Burke was high up on the list of coveted players for the Wolfpack and Amato noted they are lucky to have Burke and his 4.2 GPA.
“We get tapes of quarterbacks from throughout the country and then we rate them as the top three or four guys who we’d like to get into the ballpark with,” Amato said.
The Pack signed only one offensive lineman this year, after they grabbed a total of 14 offensive and defensive linemen last year.
“We set our needs on the board, and we said that whatever linemen we’d sign would be a bonus,” Amato said. “We were in the ballpark with a lot of them and we got to the point where he wanted it.”
The class includes 11 players from Florida with only six from North Carolina. Florida is typically a hot bed for Amato and his staff, but they lost numerous recruiting battles in their own state.
“We work this state as hard as anybody in this state or in the country,” Amato said. “But if you look at this stuff, there’s a lot of people who have left the state, this year and last year, and have not even visited in-state schools.”
The surprise of Wednesday’s signing day was the transfer of former University of South Carolina player to State in tight end Jonathan Hannah, a recruiting target of last year’s class.
Hannah was injured playing for the Gamecocks in 2005. Amato said when he and his staff heard Hannah wanted to transfer, they were more than happy to oblige.
“He brought himself back home; we didn’t. That was his decision,” Amato said.
The success of a 7-5 season that included a win at Florida State and a bowl game shutout win helped the Pack in recruiting this year.
But Amato said one of the main tools he and his staff are able to use is the ever-growing facilities surrounding Carter-Finley Stadium, and the ability to put players into the NFL draft.
“These young men [who] we recruited this year know what we’ve done the last six years. They know that we’ve been to five bowls in six years and that we’ve won four of them,” Amato said.
“Youngsters want to go to places like that. They ask why are they getting opportunities to go out early, and it must be that they’re not only good athletes, but somebody is teaching them something proper to get up there.”
