Clayton defensive standout Keshawn Stancil has had the same post pinned to the top of his X account for more than a year: “Beyond blessed to receive a D1 offer from NC State University.”
That offer clearly meant something (it’s still there as of July 8): Local school. Early attention. A chance to play for the hometown team.
But on June 28, in front of friends and family at Clayton High, the four-star defensive end and one of the top players in the state chose a different path — one that’s becoming increasingly familiar for elite in-state talent.
“Death Valley, I’m Homeeeee,” Stancil posted after committing to the reigning ACC champion Clemson Tigers.
NC State made his top five. It didn’t make the final cut.
Ranked No. 13 in North Carolina and No. 211 nationally by 247Sports, Stancil recorded 23 tackles for loss and nine sacks in 2024. His recruitment was a priority for the Wolfpack, a team with a strong defensive pedigree.
But this wasn’t just a recruiting miss for one program. It felt like a symbolic one, too, for our state as a whole.
It feels like more and more of North Carolina’s top high school talent is getting away to college programs outside our borders. But is that really the case?
The answer is complicated.
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A Subtle but Telling Trend
247Sports has followed and charted high school football recruiting extensively for close to two decades. Twenty-one of the top 25 players from its North Carolina Class of 2026 have already made “hard” commitments to college programs. Only four have chosen in-state schools – two have committed to UNC, one to Appalachian State, one to East Carolina.
In 2025 and 2024, that number wasn’t much better: just nine of 247Sports’ top-25 players each year picked in-state schools.
Compare that to earlier years — 15 from the top 25 stayed home in both 2020 and 2021 — and the shift becomes harder to ignore.
Open Borders: Not Much of a Fence Around the State
There’s no single reason why fewer of North Carolina’s best high school football players are staying home for college — but several forces seem to be working together to pull them away.
First, the SEC and Big Ten now operate on an entirely different financial tier.
With multi-billion-dollar TV deals and national recruiting brands, schools like Tennessee, Georgia, Ohio State and Michigan are not just pitching tradition — they’re offering exposure, NIL infrastructure and a launchpad to the NFL. (Add Notre Dame to that mix as well).
Tennessee has snagged three out of the last four No. 1 players in our state. Current Grimsley quarterback Faizon Brandon – considered by 247Sports to be the top 2026 prospect in the nation – announced a commitment to the Vols last fall, before leading the Whirlies to a state championship.
The state’s top 2025 player, Providence Day offensive line stalwart David Sanders, inked with Tennessee last December and was on campus in Knoxville by spring. Neither UNC nor NC State were in contention at the end. He listed Ohio State, Georgia and Nebraska as his other finalists.
Second, UNC appears to have shifted its recruiting strategy.
Under Mack Brown, the Tar Heels made a deliberate effort to lock up home-grown talent — and for a while, it worked. UNC landed the No. 1 in-state player three times between 2019 and 2022 (quarterbacks Drake Maye and Sam Howell, and defensive lineman Travis Shaw). The Tar Heels received pledges from 11 of the state’s top 25 players in 2020 and 10 more of the top 25 from 2021.
But Brown was let go last fall, in large part because those recruiting wins didn’t produce enough ‘W’s’ on the field. And since Bill Belichick’s arrival, UNC seems to have taken a more national approach to stocking its roster.
Of the Tar Heels’ 30 current 2026 commitments as of July 7, only three hail from North Carolina. The rest come from 16 different states — stretching from Massachusetts to Texas to California.
While the Tar Heels currently have the No. 18 ranked class nationally according to 247Sports, will a continued focus on establishing a more national footprint hurt the Tar Heels in high school coaches offices around our state? Does that even matter any more, with the ACC itself stretching 3,000 miles from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast? It will bear watching.
NC State has been more consistent but less dominant.
The Wolfpack under coach Dave Doeren have averaged three-to-five top-25 in-state commits most years, but they haven’t landed a No. 1 player in that stretch. Nor have they matched UNC’s brief recruiting bursts in sheer quantity.
On the field, however, State currently holds a four-game winning streak in head-to-head meetings with their rivals. The Pack has won seven of the last nine against UNC and is 13-5 since losing three straight in 2004-06.
And then there’s the portal. NIL. The culture shift. The centralization of college football toward the top two power conferences.
Today’s elite recruits are thinking more nationally — and more transactionally. For many, it’s no longer about staying close to home or putting on the hometown jersey. It’s about going where they feel most wanted, most valued and most set up to succeed. And where the payout might be the most promising. The ACC, as has been well-documented, has been struggling to keep up.
It’s hard to fault high school prospects for that last aspect. Would anyone pass up the chance to enter adulthood with tens — or even hundreds — of thousands of dollars in their bank account, instead of heaps of student debt?
And winning matters. Or lack thereof.
Bowl games have come to be expected at all four of our ACC schools these days. We play good college football in our state. But NC State’s last conference championship came in 1979. North Carolina’s most recent was 1980, Duke 1989 and Wake Forest 2006.
No team from our state has sniffed the College Football Playoff, even with the recent expansion to 12 teams. None are in the conversation to make it this year either – extreme dark horses at best.
Don’t think SEC and Big Ten heavyweights haven’t been using that information in the recruiting wars in our state. “Want to win AND get paid AND play in front of 100,000 football-crazy fans every week? Come to our school and conference.” A lot more are saying yes.
Which of our state's FBS teams will be the first to make the College Football Playoff? pic.twitter.com/SZsYPSEnBm — NC Football News (@NCFootballNews) July 6, 2025
The Numbers Game: Crowded Neighborhood, Limited Supply
And here’s another layer that makes in-state recruiting a challenge: North Carolina doesn’t have the sheer volume of blue-chip prep talent that some neighboring states do. We have great talent here – in fact some of the best in the nation per 247Sports ranking system. Just not enough of it to spread among two flagship schools and seven total FBS programs.
247Sports has given 3-star, 4-star and 5-star rankings to 68 North Carolina players from the Class of 2026 (rising seniors). That’s solid — but pales in comparison to the 208 ranked players in Florida, 189 in Georgia and 108 in Alabama.
South Carolina? Just 35 players are currently ranked by 247Sports in-state. Which helps explain why Clemson and South Carolina regularly try to poach talent from North Carolina high school campuses. And succeed – both the Tigers and Gamecocks currently have three commits each from among North Carolina’s top 30 2026 players.
So while North Carolina produces elite prep players every year, it’s not the kind of state where you can build an entire roster just by recruiting locally — especially not in today’s climate.
And the neighborhood is getting more crowded. UNC and NC State battle annually for the state’s top 25, but:
- Duke has raised its football profile in recent years under coach Manny Diaz and Mike Elko — and has managed to have the best on-field product in 2023 and 2024 despite navigating tougher academic restrictions.
- App State and ECU continue to recruit aggressively in-state and carve out their own niche.
- Charlotte is now part of the AAC and building under new coach Tim Albin.
- Seven FBS programs in all compete for a talent pool that’s both limited in size and under constant pressure from zealous out-of-state recruiters.
All of this makes it increasingly hard for any single in-state program to “own” North Carolina recruiting — no matter how strong their brand or how loyal their fans.
Where This Leaves Us
The idea of “putting a fence around North Carolina” has always been more aspiration than reality. Even during their best recruiting years, the Tar Heels and Wolfpack haven’t consistently locked down large swaths of the state’s top talent.
Still, this recent trend feels different. Whether it’s NIL opportunities, national exposure, the rise of two mega-conferences or new coaching philosophies, North Carolina’s best high school prospects appear increasingly content to begin their college journeys in another state — and the data backs it up.
That doesn’t mean the cupboard is bare or that the pendulum won’t swing back once the “wild west” nature of modern college football starts to settle. Maybe the “Chapel Bill” effect will put UNC at the forefront of in-state 2027 recruiting.
But it does mean local schools will have to fight harder for commitments — not just with each other, but with a growing list of national powers circling the North Carolina mountains, piedmont and coastal plain for prospects.
And that means fans of UNC, NC State, Duke, Wake Forest and others will have to continue to hold their breath every time a top prospect asks on social media: “Where’s home?”
Fast Facts | NC Football Recruiting
Charting NC high school football recruiting by 247Sports from 2010-2026:
- 183 of 403 players ranked in the top 25 by 247Sports committed to an in-state college program (45 percent)
- 86 of those 183 players chose UNC
- 58 players picked NC State, followed by Duke 15, Wake Forest 11, ECU 7, App State 4, North Carolina Central 1 and Charlotte 1
- Of the last 17 players ranked No. 1 in the state by 247Sports, only four have committed to an in-state program – all to UNC.
2026 Top-25 Football Recruits in North Carolina
Source 247Sports | July 2026
| RANK | NAME | POS | HOMETOWN | SCHOOL | HARD COMMIT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Faizon Brandon | QB | Greensboro | Grimsley HS | Tennessee 8/3/24 |
| 2 | Rodney Dunham | EDGE | Charlotte | Myers Park HS | Notre Dame 4/10/2025 |
| 3 | Ekene Ogboko | IOL | Garner | South Garner HS | Georgia 6/18/2025 |
| 4 | Kendre Harrison | TE | Reidsville | Reidsville HS | Oregon 11/30/2024 |
| 5 | Leo Delaney | IOL | Charlotte | Providence Day | Clemson 6/3/2025 |
| 6 | Aiden Harris | DL | Matthews | Weddington HS | South Carolina 6/8/2025 |
| 7 | Samari Matthews | CB | Cornelius | Hough HS | |
| 8 | Noah Clark | DL | Durham | Jordan HS | South Carolina 7/2/2025 |
| 9 | Pierre “PJ” Dean | IOL | Clemmons | West Forsyth HS | Georgia 6/30/2025 |
| 10 | Camdin Portis | CB | Charlotte | Myers Park HS | Miami 10/27/2024 |
| 11 | Thomas Davis Jr. | LB | Matthews | Weddington HS | Notre Dame 11/12/2024 |
| 12 | Trashawn Ruffin | DL | Mount Olive | North Duplin HS | North Carolina 3/27/2024 |
| 13 | Keshawn Stancil | DL | Clayton | Clayton HS | Clemson 6/28/2025 |
| 14 | Elijah Littlejohn | EDGE | Charlotte | West Charlotte HS | Penn State 6/16/2025 |
| 15 | Ebenezer Ewetade | EDGE | Garner | South Garner HS | Notre Dame 4/5/2025 |
| 16 | Zavion Griffin-Hayes | EDGE | Rolesville | Rolesville HS | North Carolina 6/5/2025 |
| 17 | Gordon Sellars | WR | Charlotte | Providence Day | Clemson 4/18/2025 |
| 18 | Ben Boulware | DL | Winston-Salem | Oak Grove HS | |
| 19 | Damaad Lewis | DL | Charlotte | Myers Park HS | |
| 20 | Andrew Harris | LB | Matthews | Weddington HS | South Carolina 6/8/2025 |
| 21 | Jace McCallum | EDGE | Harrisburg | Hickory RIdge HS | Vanderbilt 6/11/2025 |
| 22 | Manny Lewis | EDGE | Waxhaw | Marvin Ridge HS | Appalachian State 6/1/2025 |
| 23 | Terande Spencer | EDGE | Rockingham | Richmond Senior HS | East Carolina 6/14/2025 |
| 24 | Keysaun Eleazer | EDGE | Raleigh | Southeast Raleigh HS | Stanford 7/1/2025 |
| 25 | J.B. Shabazz | OT | Kernersville | East Forsyth HS |
Top North Carolina Football Prospects | 2010-2026
Source 247Sports
- 2026 – QB Faizon Brandon: Greensboro | Grimsley HS → Committed to Tennessee
- 2025 – OL David Sanders: Charlotte | Providence Day School → Tennessee
- 2024 – DL Bryce Young: Charlotte | Charlotte Christian → Notre Dame
- 2023 – DL Daevin Hobbs: Concord | Jay M. Robinson HS → Tennessee
- 2022 – DL Travis Shaw: Greensboro | Grimsley HS → North Carolina
- 2021 – QB Drake Maye: Charlotte | Myers Park HS → North Carolina
- 2020 – OLB Trenton Simpson: Charlotte | Mallard Creek HS → Clemson
- 2019 – QB Sam Howell: Monroe | Sun Valley HS → North Carolina
- 2018 – RB Zamir White: Laurinburg | Scotland County HS → Georgia
- 2017 – SAF Hamsah Nasirildeen: Concord | Concord HS → Florida State
- 2016 – DT Dexter Lawrence: Wake Forest | Wake Forest HS → Clemson
- 2015 – WDE Jalen Dalton: Clemmons | West Forsyth HS → North Carolina
- 2014 – QB Will Grier: Davidson | Davidson Day → Florida
- 2013 – OLB Larenz Bryant: Charlotte | Chambers HS → South Carolina
- 2012 – OT DJ Humphries: Charlotte | Mallard Creek HS → Florida
- 2011 – OLB Stephone Anthony: Wadesboro | Anson County HS → Clemson
- 2010 – SAF/WR Keenan Allen: Greensboro | Northern Guilford HS → California
TOTALS: North Carolina 4, Clemson 3, Tennessee 3, Florida 2, California 1, Florida State 1, Georgia 1, Notre Dame 1, South Carolina 1
2026 college commitment, ACC football, FBS football, North Carolina football, Duke football, NC State football, Wake Forest football, NC high school football recruiting, East Carolina football, Appalachian State football, Charlotte football, Bill Belichick
