Extra Points: NSD, Take Two

By Lee Pace

Chad Scott was wearing his royal blue Kentucky garb during the spring of 2015 when he visited Apopka High School in the northern Orlando suburbs to check on a couple of prospects in his central Florida recruiting area. Catching his eye beyond the older guys were a couple of raw, ninth-grade offensive linemen.

"Coach, who are those kids?" he asked head coach Rick Darlington, nodding toward William Barnes and Ed Montilus.

Both were well over six-feet tall and nearing the 300-pound range even at that young age.

"What stood out to me was their size and athleticism, the way they moved and their coordination," Scott says. "I also liked the way they took coaching. Apopka has a great program and tremendous coaching. At such a young age, those kids could not only take coaching but respond to it and not go in the tank. Coach Darlington raved about them both, said they were on the right track and had tremendous upside. He's seen a lot of talent over the years."

So Scott says it was a "no brainer" to offer Barnes and Montilus scholarships to Kentucky for three years down the road.

"I was the first one to offer them," he says. "That started a three-year relationship. And there's never been a dull moment."

Indeed, Scott would move from Kentucky to Chapel Hill a year later to join Larry Fedora's staff. One of his first items of business was to show offensive line coach Chris Kapilovic highlight reels of Barnes and Montilus. Kapilovic liked what he saw, and he and Scott were interested to learn in offering scholarships to Barnes and Montilus as potential Tar Heels that Barnes' mother, Kay, is a Carolina graduate from the Michael Jordan era of the mid-1980s.

"William was really athletic, you could see that in watching him pull and block on the edge," Kapilovic says. "I liked Ed as an inside player. He was all-state as a junior. Some people tended to overlook him. But they were good players, good kids and both very interested in a quality education."

Other schools saw the same things. Every school in the SEC, many in the ACC and beyond jumped on the bandwagon. By September of their junior years, they had more than two dozen offers. Barnes was close to pulling the trigger for the Tar Heels last June, but his father wanted him to take all of his visits and take his time. It probably helped Carolina stay in the lead that both Florida and Florida State had coaching changes after the 2017 season.

Fortunately for the Tar Heels, Barnes and Montilus cast their lots with Carolina Wednesday on National Signing Day. They were two of seven players who signed and are added to the overall 2018 signing class that includes 14 players who signed on the early signing day on Dec. 20. In this latest group were three offensive linemen, one receiver, one cornerback, one linebacker and one defensive end.

"I was exited the first time, I'm excited the second time," Fedora said of having to stage two National Signing Day operations within 50 days of each other. "Whenever you can bring in new student-athletes to help your football team, you get excited about it."

Barnes is projected as a tackle but could play guard as well, and Monitlus is an inside player. They are joined by another Wednesday signee, Joshua Ezeudu of Lawrenceville, Ga., and a December signee, Avery Jones of Havelock, to give the Tar Heels four offensive linemen. Those combined with five O-linemen from the 2017 signing class give the Tar Heels a solid nucleus to work from.

"I told William he legitimately has a chance to play as a freshman," Kapilovic says. "But a lot of that depends on him—what kind of shape he's in when he arrives in June and how much of the playbook he can learn by then. He's long enough to play tackle, but if William Sweet is healthy, we might start Barnes at guard."

Carolina picked up one receiver, Antoine Green of Rockledge, Fla., who was originally a Florida State pledge but looked elsewhere following the coaching change in Tallahassee. He joins December signees Jordan Adams and Dyami Brown to give Carolina a trio of playmakers who can make a difference starting next August.

"Antoine is a tall kid, 6-2, about 190 pounds, a guy who can really run and plays up above the rim," Fedora says. "He can really get up in the air. He's one of those big guys we like to get on the outside. But he's skilled enough to play inside."

On defense Carolina announced a cornerback it knew it was getting back in December, a linebacker who has already enrolled for the spring semester, and a late-comer at defensive end from Alabama.

DeAndre Hollins committed to Carolina at Fedora's Freak Show last June and never wavered, but he wanted to join some teammates at Thomas Jefferson High in Tampa on the February NSD in making it official.

"He's got size, length, speed and is physical," says Scott, who recruits the Tampa area. "And he's got swagger that I like. He came to the Freak Show and wanted to go against Jordyn Adams one-on-one every rep. They fought it out, both of them won some, lost some. But they competed and that's what you like to see."

Matthew Flint of Gurley, Ala., was recruited by Tommy Thigpen of the Tennessee staff in the summer of 2017 and committed to the Vols. But his feelings for the Vols changed in December when head coach Butch Jones was fired and Thigpen lost his job. Thigpen was hired by Fedora in early January, and Flint's father called and asked if there might be a place for his son in Chapel Hill. Flint made an official visit the second weekend of January, returned home, called to commit and immediately packed and drove to Chapel Hill to enroll for spring semester.

"I call him a 'poor man's Bruce Carter,'" Thigpen says in comparison to a Tar Heel he recruited in 2006 as a member of John Bunting's staff. "Bruce was 6-4, ran a 4.4 and had a 40-inch vertical leap. He had freakish numbers. Matt is 6-foot tall, weighs almost 240 and has the same measurables as far as jumping and running."

Gavin Lewis is a 6-4, 280-pound defensive end from Madison, Ala., who was on Thigpen's radar for Tennessee. He had an outstanding senior year and his stock rose as the fall wore on.

"We knew we wanted another defensive tackle or defensive end, and Tommy brought Gavin to our attention," Fedora says. "We looked at the tape and evaluated it and made sure he could handle things academically and then we offered him. He had to get to know him and his family in basically a two-week period."

It took Chad Scott three years to finally sign his guys from Apopka, and it took less than a month for the Tar Heels to identify and reel in an end from Alabama. So it goes in the whacky world of recruiting.

Chapel Hill-based writer Lee Pace has written "Extra Points" since 1990 and has been the sideline reporter for the Tar Heel Sports Network since 2004. Email him at leepace7@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter at @LeePaceTweet.

Players Mentioned

William Sweet

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