ACC Recruiting Winners & Losers

Florida State landed the ACC’s best recruits on national signing day, but Duke did nicely too and Miami still hopes to snag the country’s best high school running back.  Here’s a rundown of the conference’s winners and losers:

WINNERS

Duke

In their first season under head coach David Cutcliffe, the Blue Devils won four games, matching their total from the previous four years combined. Once the dust settled on national signing day, it became apparent that his success will not be limited to the field. Cutcliffe is bringing in the best recruiting class Durham has ever seen — when it comes to the gridiron, that is.

While it probably won’t crack many analysts’ top 25, this class features a lot of impact players on both sides of the ball, including two members of the Rivals250 — defensive tackle John Drew and running back Desmond Scott. A homegrown talent from Durham, N.C., Scott is the type of game-changer that Duke needs to compete in the ACC. As any coach will tell you, recruiting your area well is a recipe for success, and Cutcliffe did just that. Fourteen of the 27 prospects who signed with the Blue Devils are from either North or South Carolina.

Florida State

In what has become a staple of the Bobby Bowden era in Tallahassee, the Seminoles once again ended up as winners on national signing day, mostly because they signed the best player among all ACC schools — cornerback Greg Reid. The five-star defensive back was committed to Florida for most of the recruiting period, but after an impressive week at the Under Armour All-American practices, the Valdosta, Ga., native opened things back up and signed with the ‘Noles on Feb. 3.

The addition of Reid to an already loaded class that features top prospects such as defensive tackle Jaccobi McDaniel and safety/wide receiver Willie Downs puts Florida State on the top of the ACC recruiting heap, ahead of Miami.

Miami

After signing a consensus top-five class last year following his first full season as head coach, Randy Shannon signed a smaller, more need-based class in 2009.

The two glaring weak spots that Miami needed to address were in the defensive backfield and on the offensive line, and the ‘Canes added significant depth at both positions.

The team signed four defensive backs. The headliner, 6-foot-4 Ray Ray Armstrong, will start at defensive back but realistically could play a number of positions given his athleticism. Shannon will also count on four-star offensive linemen Brandon Washington and Jermaine Johnson — both of whom attended prep school this past season — to step in and contribute right away.

Perhaps the most interesting news about this class is that the team could potentially add one more player, and he’s a doozy.

Running Back Bryce Brown was awarded Rivals’ No. 1 overall ranking following the Army All-American Bowl, where he caught two touchdowns and had 146 total yards. Throughout the recruiting period, Brown had been a soft commitment to Miami, where his older brother Arthur plays linebacker. But Brown hasn’t sign anywhere yet and now isn’t expected to until he takes two more official visits.

If the ‘Canes can get Brown into the fold, they would have an impressive stable of running backs entering the ’09 season.

LOSERS

Clemson

Let it be known that head coach Dabo Swinney did a fantastic job keeping this recruiting class together, and he did an even better job stealing Elite-11 quarterback Tajh Boyd — the Army All-American bowl co-MVP — from Oregon and Ohio State down the stretch. But this class — a solid class, no doubt — definitely could have become an elite class had Clemson not been hit hard by the attrition that former head coach Tommy Bowden left in his wake when he was let go in October.

The Tigers will lose both starting safeties from last year’s team, and at one point, they were prepared to restock with three top safety prospects, including Craig Loston, Rivals’ No. 1-ranked safety. However, once Bowden left, Loston reneged and signed with LSU. To make matters worse, South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier signed the other two committed safeties.

Wake Forest

Jim Grobe is the type of coach who does a better job coaching his recruits once they’re on campus than he does actually landing high-profile recruits, so perhaps it would be a better idea to reserve judgment on his ’09 class until it’s been in the program a couple of years.

While Grobe has been lauded for steadily building the Wake Forest program to respectability, his recruiting has yet to catch up. The staff did not bring in any player rated above a three-star, and that should be mildly disappointing to Grobe, especially considering the talent in the Winston-Salem area.

Nonetheless, Grobe has always had a specific and unique blueprint when it comes to the types of players he recruits. Until these players actually get the chance to prove themselves on the field, the jury is still out.

Boston College

Like Clemson, the Eagles threw a wrench in their own recruiting plans when athletic director Gene DeFilippo decided to fire head coach Jeff Jagodzinski after he interviewed for the New York Jets’ coaching vacancy in December. Now, new head coach Frank Spaziani is prepared to welcome just 17 players to Chestnut Hill, and only one of them — four-star defensive end Dillon Quinn — is a member of the Rivals250.

But losing Jagodzinski wasn’t the Eagles’ worst problem this year. Instead, for a team that normally can have its pick of the top prospects in Massachusetts, the team struck out with the state’s two best prospects, tight end Arthur Lynch and offensive tackle Brennan Williams.

Lynch and Williams are two of the more impressive prospects to come out of Massachusetts in recent years. For Boston College to let them sign elsewhere is not the best way to continue its streak of ACC title game appearances.

Michael Lemaire is a junior at the University of Maryland, where he is majoring in journalism. He also works as the baseball beat reporter for the Diamondback, the school’s student newspaper.

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