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WRALSportsFan

Complete recruiting coverage coming today

By Dane Huffman

Feb 4, 2009

Today is signing day in college footballm, and the local teams are looking for a major impact as the letters of intent roll in.

Duke, which holds its news conference at 1 p.m., has a surprising number of North Carolina players ready to sign. The University of North Carolina is looking to sign a monster class that could be one of the nation's best, but Carolina's commitments exceed the NCAA limit of 25 per class.InsideCarolina.com is already reporting 25 players have faxed in their letters of intent to UNC, including elite quarterback Bryn Renner of Springfield (Va.) West.

Carolina's class is expected to be ranked among the top five in the country and would continue Butch Davis' strong recruiting run since arriving in Chapel Hill. Carolina's best recruiting successes before Davis came in the 1990s under Mack Brown. The highest-rated Brown classes, according to the California-based SuperPrep magazine at the time, were No. 9 in 1990 and No. 10 in 1997.

Many of Brown's classes, however, were ranked in the top 20, and Carolina signed many of the state's highest-rated players in that era.

UNC coach Butch Davis is scheduled to be live on 99.9 FM The Fan today at 5:05 p.m.

N.C. State is looking to fix its shallow depth on the lines with a class packed with offensive and defensive linemen. While State's class isn't as highly rated as others, Wolfpack coach Tom O'Brien had plenty of success at Boston College identifying players he wanted who weren't always highly sought.

O'Brien will discuss his class live on The Fan at 5:25 p.m.

And East Carolina will announce a class that will try to continue the success the Pirates have had under coach Skip Holtz.

Meanwhile, you can find where all the local athletes are headed with extensive coverage on HighSchoolOT.com.

Coaches love to say it takes four years to evaluate a class, and to some extent that's true,  but you won't have to wait four years for the skinny on these recruits. You'll find coverage and analyse throughout the day on WRALSportsFan, The Fan and WRAL-TV. Josh Hailey will be at Duke today, Bob Holliday and Jason Jennings at UNC and Ken Medlin at N.C. State to provide full reports on what the schools were seeking - and what they found.