University of North Carolina Athletics
Queen City Connection
September 24, 2014 | Football
By Ben Brown
The day freshman running back Elijah Hood announced he was attending North Carolina instead of Notre Dame was one of the most important days in the tenure of Tar Heel head coach Larry Fedora. Not only was Hood a highly-touted recruit, but he's a Charlotte native, which has been a huge recruiting emphasis for Fedora since he set foot on campus in Chapel Hill.
Whether he's flying in a helicopter to see recruits play or holding a spring practice at Charlotte high schools, Fedora has proven that he wants North Carolina to dominate the Charlotte area in recruiting. So far he's held true to his beliefs as 18 players on his current roster are from Charlotte while are another handful of players like Nortkeithus Otis (Gastonia) are from the surrounding parts of the Queen City.
“There's a lot of good football players in that area,” Fedora said. “When you look at the whole state and you look at the history of it, you've got quite a few players that have come out of that area that we need to be in on every single year. We've got a large fan base in that area and a huge presence and we want to continue to keep that.”
While the state of North Carolina may not be considered quite a high school football hotbed on the level of California, Florida or Texas, prep football in North Carolina is nothing to be looked down upon. Charlotte-area schools like Butler and Mallard Creek have been ranked in the top 25 nationally by USA Today in recent years, and Independence High School was also a national powerhouse in the 2000s.
With so many players on the UNC roster hailing from Charlotte, including key players such as Hood, Otis and starting quarterback Marquise Williams, the hope is that they will help to encourage other young players to become Tar Heels. “I think it opens the door,” Hood said after practice this week. “There always has to be someone who starts it a little bit, so maybe I can come and draw some other people to come here, and then all of a sudden we're getting all of the best kids out of our state. I know our state produces some really good talent that is playing at other schools, but if they were here I believe that we'd be a really, really good program.”
If you ask Williams about Charlotte area high school players who have decided to play elsewhere, his eyes light up and the frustration grows in his voice. “A lot of our guys go out of state or go somewhere else, and that really disappoints me,” said Williams, who served as Mallard Creek High School's honorary captain last week. “Whenever I see somebody from Charlotte, I say 'Come home. This is where your home is. UNC is two hours away so you can go home any time you want, and why not play for your home state?' I tell guys that all the time. You look at guys from Florida and they stay home to play at Florida State or Miami or the University of Florida. Why can't we be like those guys and competing every time for an ACC championship or a national championship?”
So far in his tenure, Fedora has succeeded in controlling the Charlotte area as local rivals NC State, Duke and East Carolina each have no more than 10 such players on their rosters. But if UNC is to take the next step on the college football landscape, the program has to lock down top prospects from the Charlotte area like Hood, Williams and Otis every single year.
