Wake Forest Steals In-State Quarterback

Wake Forest landed one of its biggest recruits of the last several years on Wednesday night. Three-star quarterback Kendall Hinton gave his commitment to Wake, choosing the Demon Deacons after N.C. State was the heavy favorite to win his recruitment.

Hinton, a 6-0, 180-pound prospect from Durham, North Carolina, is rated the No. 2 quarterback in the state by 247Sports. He also had offers from Duke, Boston College, East Carolina and others.

Hinton is a prolific quarterback at Southern Durham High School, according to stats compiled by the Raleigh News and Observer. In his junior season, he threw for 4,159 yards and 40 touchdowns against eight interceptions. He also scrambled for 1,242 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns.

Just as important as landing one of the top quarterbacks in the state is winning a recruitment against all the other North Carolina schools. Hinton was one of N.C. State’s top targets, and while he wasn’t a priority for North Carolina and Duke, both of those schools expressed a generous amount of interest at one time or another.

Going back until at least 2002, Wake Forest has never signed a quarterback who reported offers from any of the other North Carolina ACC schools. Former coach Jim Grobe made a living out of traveling to other states and finding diamond-in-the-rough prospects to fill his roster. If Dave Clawson can win in-state recruitments like this, then he’ll be able to compete in the ACC sooner than later.

For Hinton, he’s walking into a situation where he could be a multi-year starter for the Demon Deacons. While Clawson signed two quarterbacks in the last class, neither of them were rated higher than Hinton. Coming out of spring, there isn’t one player slated to start at quarterback, so that competition will be wide open heading into this season, and probably before next season, too. 

You can watch Hinton’s junior highlights here:

You can also watch him compete in the Elite 11 Camp here: