By the numbers: NC State football recruiting class of 2020

Here are some numbers to highlight interesting facts and trends coming out of NC State football's 21-player class in 2020.

3 for 1 Signing Day Special: Sign up for one month, get 2 months FREE!

Click here for details.

That’s if you use the overall rankings. The Pack is fourth among ACC Atlantic teams behind Clemson (tops in the ACC), Florida State (second) and Louisville (sixth).

If you go by stars per player, NC State’s 2.95 checks in ninth. It leaps Louisville’s 2.92 in the Atlantic but remains fourth overall in the division because Boston College averaged 3.0 for its 15 signees.

Here is how that compares to head coach Dave Doeren’s previous full classes at NC State.

The state of North Carolina leads the way by producing eight signees, followed by four from Georgia, three in Florida, two from Maryland, and one apiece from Arizona, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.

For Doeren, it is the first time he has inked high school players from Texas and Arizona, although he did land a major college transfer from each state (former quarterback Ryan Finley was from Arizona and redshirt junior linebacker Vi Jones is from Texas).

Since Doeren arrived at NC State in time to finish off the 2013 class, he has signed natives of 20 different states.

This is from using the GoPack.com measurables for each player.

The tallest signees were 6-5 (three-star defensive lineman Claude Larkins Jr. from Chaminade-Madonna in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., and two-star tight end Ezemdi Udoh from Terry Sanford High in Fayetteville, N.C.), while the shortest were 5-9 (defensive backs Nehki Meredith from Bishop Sullivan in Virginia Beach, Va., and Joshua Pierre-Louis from The Benjamin School in Riviera Beach, Fla.).

The heaviest were 300 pounds (three-star offensive linemen Sean Hill from Brookwood High in Snellville, Ga., and Anthony Carter Jr. from Butler High in Matthews, N.C.), while the lightest were 160 pounds (three-star receivers Chris Scott from Dacula (Ga.) High and Jalen Coit from Cheraw (S.C.) High).

NC State added three-star receiver Joshua Crabtree from Heritage High in Wake Forest, N.C., on Wednesday to join the December haul that included Coit and Scott, four-star Porter Rooks from Myers Park High in Charlotte and two-star Anthony Smith from Huntingtown (Md.) High.

The last time NC State signed that many receivers in one class was 2013 — Johnathan Alston, Bra’Lon Cherry, Pharoah McKever, Jumichael Ramos and Marquez Valdes-Scantling. Cherry and Ramos were the only two that played their entire career both at receiver and at NC State.

McKever eventually moved to tight end and played his final season as a grad transfer at FIU before getting an NFL tryout. Alston moved to corner after three seasons at wideout and also received a NFL camp invite. Valdes-Scantling transferred to South Florida after two years and currently plays for the Green Bay Packers.

In addition to the aforementioned Coit, Hill, Meredith and Rooks, also enrolling early were three-stars defensive back Devan Boykin from Ragsdale High in Greensboro, N.C., quarterback Ben Finley from Paradise Valley High in Phoenix, Ariz., offensive lineman Ethan Lane from Archer High in Lawrenceville, Ga., and linebacker Jayland Parker from Westside High in Macon, Ga.

On the plus side for the Pack, NC State was able to land the following players who had been committed elsewhere:

• Three-star defensive lineman Nick Booker-Brown from Westfield High in Houston (Boise State)

• Larkins (Minnesota)

• Parker (Colorado)

• Scott (Eastern Kentucky)

Of course, one of the main stories from the December signing period was the number of players who ended up elsewhere after committing to NC State:

• Three-star offensive lineman Jonathan Adorno (North Carolina)

• Three-star offensive lineman Austin Blaske (Georgia)

• Three-star receiver Stephen Gosnell (North Carolina)

• Three-star cornerback Joseph Johnson (Penn State)

• Three-star receiver Nate McCollum (Georgia Tech)

• Two-star defensive lineman Pheldarius Payne (Nebraska)

• Four-star cornerback Jahquez Robinson (Alabama)

• Three-star defensive tackle Jaylen Smith (Oregon)

NC State added another two-sport athlete to the fold on Wednesday in Booker-Brown, who also plays basketball for Westfield and increased the total of multiple-sport performers in the class to eight. What’s notable is how good some of them are in other sports.

Boykin averaged 16.3 points and 3.7 assists per game in basketball as a junior, while Coit averaged over 20 points per game on the hardwood in his career. Both were among the early enrollees and thus are skipping their senior years in hoops.

Smith recently won the 3-A East Regional in Maryland for indoor track in the 55-meter sprint with a time of 6.46 seconds, which was just off his personal-best mark of 6.43. He was second in the 300-meter dash with a personal best of 35.27 seconds, and earlier in the season had a new best of 6 feet, 8 inches in the high jump. Last year, Smith finished second in the 200-meter dash (22.44 seconds) and third in the high jump (6-2) in the state outdoor championships.

As a junior, Scott was sixth in the Georgia 6-A state outdoor track championships in the 100-meter dash (10.96 seconds) and fifth in the 200 (21.94 seconds). His personal bests in both races are 10.79 and 21.83 seconds, respectively.

Three-star corner Aydan White is a three-time Independent Schools Division 1 state champ for Christ School near Asheville, N.C., in the 110-meter hurdles and added a high jump title in 2019.

Four-star defensive lineman Davin Vann recently set a new personal-best in the indoor shot put with a throw of 59-9, a mark that when he posted it in late January ranked among the top 10 in the country. He finished second in the event at the 4-A outdoor state championships a year ago and followed that up by placing third at the 2019 New Balance Nationals Outdoor during the summer. Vann also won a state heavyweight wrestling title last year and is accomplished in the discus.

When Vann was awarded a fourth star in January, he and Rooks combined to give Doeren his 22nd and 23rd four-star or better recruit since he began coaching the Pack in December of 2013. That’s a bit of a milestone. Doeren passes former head coach Chuck Amato for the most signings of four- or five-stars for the Wolfpack in the Rivals.com era (2002-present).

Amato signed 22 such players from 2002 through his firing in the aftermath of the 2007 season. Tom O’Brien took over and added a four-star to that class, junior college defensive lineman Antoine Holmes. That would be the first of 14 four- or five-stars O’Brien inked from 2007-13 before his dismissal.

——

• Talk about it inside The Wolves' Den

• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes

• Learn more about our print and digital publication, The Wolfpacker

• Follow us on Twitter: @TheWolfpacker

• Like us on Facebook