The level of football played in the ACC has increased considerably in recent years. That all starts with the lifeblood of any program, recruiting. The conference is loaded with talented coaches who can also recruit successfully against anyone in the country.
For this article, we’ll utilize the 247Sports recruiting rankings to put into perspective the coaches having the most success with the current recruiting class. The 247Sports rankings utilize a metric that takes into account the number of recruits signed by each coach. That’s combined with the overall rating of each of those recruits.
It’s essentially the same metric that’s applied to team rankings.
With that here is part one of the top recruiters in the ACC for the 2018 class.
6. Rick Trickett – Assistant Head Coach/Offensive Line Coach, Florida State
Trickett is a respected veteran in what is often now a young man’s pursuit. Trickett has worked in the SEC at Mississippi State, Auburn, and LSU. He also coached at West Virginia before joining Jimbo Fisher with the Seminoles. He enters his 11th season at Florida State and his 45th overall in 2017, and he’s still reeling in talent. He was instrumental in Florida State’s No. 1 recruiting class in 2016 and received recognition from every one of the major recruiting services as one of the top recruiters in the nation. He has six commitments so far in this class with two four-star offensive lineman to boost his position group in Christian Meadows and Christian Armstrong.
7. Cort Dennison – Inside Linebackers Coach/Recruiting Coordinator, Louisville
Coach Cort Dennison discusses his path to becoming a football coach after a successful playing career & what he looks for in recruits #L1C4 pic.twitter.com/vt6p4SK5mG
— Louisville Football (@LouisvilleFB) July 5, 2017
A very young coach, Dennison starred as a linebacker for Washington and graduated in 2011. He first served as a graduate assistant for Bobby Petrino at Western Kentucky. In 2014, he joined Louisville as a defensive graduate assistant and was later promoted to assistant secondary coach and recruiting coordinator. This spring, Dennison was shifted to coach the inside linebackers in addition to his recruiting duties. Louisville’s 2018 class is currently ranked No. 34 nationally by 247Sports and out of 12 total commitments so far, Dennison has played a major role in eight of them. While his recruits are all three-star prospects, the group includes top defensive line target Dejmi Dumervil Jean, the nephew of Cardinal great Elvis Dumervil.
8. Todd Hartley – Assistant Coach/Tight Ends/Special Teams Coordinator , Miami
Hartley is another coach who followed Mark Richt from Georgia. He started his career at West Virginia in offensive quality control, then coached a year as a graduate assistant at Georgia. He worked in various roles at Marshall before returning to Georgia for one season before Richt changed jobs. Now he has a rather full plate of football duties for the Hurricanes. This season he has three commits with a pair of four-star tight ends in Brevin Jordan and Will Mallory. He also has a pledge from two-star kicker Bubba Baxa, but kicker evaluations are usually on the backburner with recruiting services. There are still some big fish out there, so Hartley could well shoot up the rankings as the class progresses.
9. Stacy Searels – Assistant Coach/Offensive Line Coach, Miami
Searels is a veteran O-line coach who has experience coaching all over the country. After playing at Auburn and beginning his coaching run as a graduate assistant there, Searels got a job at Appalachian State. That was, to this point, the longest stop of his career. That’s been followed by short stints at Cincinnati, LSU, Georgia, Texas, and Virginia Tech. Searels has three sizable commitments for his offensive line so far in this class. At 6’3″, 327-pounds, four-star guard Cleveland Reed leads the way. A quick look at his prior commitments shows that Searels’ impact is being felt not only in Coral Gables, but Blacksburg as well. It’s not often you can point to one guy who built multiple offensive lines in the same conference.
10 Anthony Campanile – Defensive Backs Coach, Boston College
Considered by most publications to be the best High School Conference in the country BC holds claim to 4 thus far!https://t.co/wsxFEgi7S7
— Leo Ferrine (@LeoFerrineBC) June 21, 2017
Campanile came up from the high school ranks and has strong northeast roots in the football world. After playing at Rutgers from 2001-2004, he began his coaching career in New Jersey. After one season at Fairlawn High School, Campanile spent 2007-2011 at the legendary Don Bosco Prep as both an offensive and defensive coordinator. He went back to Rutgers for his first jobs in college before joining the Boston College staff last year. So far, he’s been a valuable asset for the Eagles with his Jersey connections. This season, Campanile has eight players committed. While they’re all three-stars there’s nothing wrong with that. Most programs are built on talent of that level and BC has many positions covered here in this group including two pro-style quarterbacks.
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