Mack Brown evaluates North Carolina's recent recruiting, balance of NIL

North Carolina head coach Mack Brown has been outspoken about NIL, the problems it has presented and how his Tar Heels team has reacted to the changes in the landscape. He recently talked about how it has impacted his approach in the recruiting world.

“With NIL and the changes that it’s made in the recruiting landscape, we have to do a better job of evaluating number one who fits here than ever before,” Brown said. “Because if they’re going to take money before they come here, even if they commit to us and they would take illegal money in December, we shouldn’t sign them or we shouldn’t commit them because that’s just a waste of our time. If they’re going to be a great player when they get here and they’re going to take money to leave, why bring them in? You’re developing somebody and you’re losing them after a year or two years. It’s really, really important that we find the proper people academically that fit our school, the proper families that want to be here and families that are going to go by the rules.”

North Carolina’s collective is called Heels4Life, which launched in February 2022.

The executive director of the collective is Graham Boone, who is a former sports agent. His client list included Hall of Famers Tim Duncan and Ray Allen.

“I’m so proud,” Brown said. “We have a great NIL program. I’m for NIL so I don’t want it to sound like it’s a negative. But people who cheated before NIL are still cheating. If somebody’s gonna take money and if you offer someone money before they sign with you, it’s an inducement like it was two, three years ago. You cannot do that. You can simply tell them the starting running back on our team is making this much money so there’s an opportunity for you to make that money. You can’t give them the money and people are just saying, I will give you this amount of money to sign. We’re gonna go by the rules here so that’s not happening.”

Mack Brown excited about recruiting class, players trusting their NIL program

North Carolina has 21 commitments in the 2024 recruiting class, which ranks 28th in the 2024 On3 Consensus Team Recruiting Rankings.

“I’m really excited where this class is and they’re coming together,” Brown said. “It’s funny that boosters will tell me, ‘I don’t like him.’ Maybe you’ve seen him on three clips of video. We’ve got 12 people that watch every player. When you think the power of a Ted Monachino and a Clyde Christensen watching guys — Darrell Moody’s got 19 years of evaluation of players as a pro scout — you start looking at those guys, plus our recruiting staff, plus the entire side of the ball that is recruiting the player for defense. There’s 12 evaluations that are written up separately before it ever comes to me. If they feel like I need to see him because they think he’s a scholarship player, then Pat Suddes brings me the video and I write up what I see. Then I take the 12 evals, and I go back and look at every one of them. Then we meet as a staff and decide who we should offer.”

Brown clearly places a major emphasis on off-the-field aspects while evaluating recruiting. In addition to all the questions on NIL, Brown said he is a believer in getting players with good GPAs.

“Core GPA is a huge part of that,” Brown said. “I like to start with 3.0 and above. That’s really important. I took 30 years at Texas, Sally and I sat down and looked at every player when we got out of coaching that we had recruited and said, ‘What separates people more than anything?’ Obviously there has to be a certain level of ability. If you’re the captain, it helps and all those things. But the fact that you had a 3.0 or above in your core GPA showed accountability. It showed that you cared about yourself. It showed that you cared about others. It was a very, very strong point for us.”

They recently landed a commitment from Gainesville (Ga.) cornerback Zion Ferguson, flipping the four-star recruit from LSU. Ferguson is the No. 321 overall recruit and No. 33 player in the 2024 recruiting class, according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

He is the highest-rated current recruit in the class. The Tar Heels have one other four-star commit in Hollywood (Fla.) Chaminade-Madonna Prep running back Davion Gause.

“I’m really, really proud of the young guys that are committing with us and the families that they’re trusting us that there is an NIL program within the rules that they can earn their money when they come here,” Brown said. “But we’re not going to illegally give them money before they come. We have to ask them before we bring them in: Are you going to take money? If you are, then don’t come in. That’s just who we are.”