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We can talk about “turf” and “building walls around the state”. We can rank each year’s classes. When it comes down to it, though, recruiting is about selling your program better than the guy up the street. 

Which coaches in the ACC are best at that skill? In other words, put overall class strength aside and answer a simple question: When Dave Doeren and Larry Fedora both go after the same prospect, who signs him?  

To answer the question, we looked at the “offers” database for the major recruiting sites and calculated wins and losses. For instance, UNC signed four-star running back Elijah Hood in February. He had offers from 10 other ACC schools, meaning Larry Fedora earned a win over Clemson, Duke, FSU, Georgia Tech, NC State, Notre Dame, Syracuse, Virginia, Virginia Tech, and Wake Forest.

On the flip side, Fedora got tagged with a loss when he offered Troy Vincent, only to see the four-star safety sign with State. NC State coach Dave Doeren also earned wins against five other ACC schools that offered Vincent. 

We ran the numbers for every recruit that signed with an ACC school over the last three seasons (or, for 2015, gave an ACC school a verbal commitment). Here are the standings: 

2013

NC State, with Doeren getting a full year to recruit, and FSU, in the midst of a national championship season, saw the biggest jumps in the 2014 recruiting season. 

And with a long way to go until 2015’s signing day, here’s a look at the verbal commitment won-loss records so far.