UPDATE AT NOON: Quinton announced his decision about 45 minutes ago. He chose UNC over FSU and Tennessee.
“It’s always been Carolina,” he said. “It’s always been my dream to go to Carolina. I just wanted to go through the process to make sure this was the right decision for me.”
He said he made the decision on Monday, but didn’t tell anyone about it until moments before it was announced in a formal ceremony at Hargrave. His mother, Gail, didn’t know of his decision until it was announced.
“It was very hard to keep it a secret, because everyone has been asking me,” he said. “I kept telling everyone to wait until Wednesday.”
I’ll have a complete story in Thursday’s Free Press, which I’ll link here on the blog.
Now — I have to haul, errr, butt back to Lenoir County for Thomas Dove’s signing at 4 p.m. at South Lenoir High School. Tell the troopers to stay away from me!
EARLIER POST: It’s 9 a.m., about two hours from when former Kinston star and current Hargrave Military Academy defensive end Quinton Coples will announce his decision of which school (North Carolina, N.C. State, Florida State or Tennessee) he will play college football for. I’ll post his decision here as soon as possible after his announcement.
I’ll also have pictures (and hopefully, video) from the announcement. I talked to his coach (Robert Prunty) and he said 20 of his players are going to sign with Division I programs today. ESPN is going to be on hand for today’s announcements at Hargrave, which also includes some of the top players in America.
Blogging with Bryan C. Hanks 
February 6, 2008 at 10:26 am |
Hanks, is anyone else from Hargrave considering NC State/UNC or other area teams for that matter? Also, is Coples announcement slated to announce at 11 AM sharp?
February 6, 2008 at 11:29 am |
So Quinton Coples picked UNC as did a teammate of his…
February 6, 2008 at 6:11 pm |
Welcome to the Hill Quinton. Plugging him in that D-line along side Marvin Austin, Aleric Mullins, and company will help the Heels alot. A great get for Butch and co.
February 7, 2008 at 12:30 pm |
Arrington – Wide Reciever from Hargrave. Signed Letter of Intent to play for Skip Holtz at ECU.
February 7, 2008 at 7:28 pm |
yurp and i think he’s a 3-star recrut(ECu got 3 *** while App St got 2 ***)
February 8, 2008 at 9:17 am |
Like Skip said Wednesday, “Let me tell you what you can do with your stars….” Those stars don’t mean jack. Ask UNC who has had on average the 16th best recruiting class over the last 7 or so years and is obviously not 16th in the nation. Coaching makes a way bigger impact than stars. Which is why they hired Butch and we hired Skip. Seems to be benefiting both programs.
February 8, 2008 at 11:39 am |
ECPirates11,
Get your lies straight before you tell them. We have NOT had the 16th best recruiting class on average the last 7 years. Not withstanding last year’s great class by Butch which was ranked as high as 11th on ESPN.com’s recruiting rankings, in his best years on the recruiting trail, John Bunting sneaked into the top 25, but barely. One of his classes was in the low 30’s, a couple in the high 30’s, and one I remember being along the lines of 28-29 or so. Butch, despite having a limited amount of scholarships this year, managed to secure the 30th ranked class with only 17 signees. If Dwight Jones, a five star receiver from last year’s class, qualifies, then that ranking will go even higher.
I don’t live and die by how many stars are next to a recruit’s name, but you are kidding yourself if you think getting highly ranked players doesn’t make a difference. Marvin Austin and Greg Little were two of the most highly rated players at their positions last year, and they stepped in and made an immediate impact for the Heels. It does matter the quality of player you get to build your program with. Notice I said quality, not star quality, although most of the highly ranked players et al. Austin, Little, don’t miss.
In fairness what do you expect Skip to say, we go the leftovers. Every coach is going to put a positive spin on his class, regardless of whether they did a good job filling the team’s needs or not. I realize Skip was in a situation similar to Butch in that they didn’t lose alot of upperclassmen, so they didn’t have as many schollys available. Time will tell who had a good signing day, and who didn’t. Personally, I have very little doubt that Carolina is heading in the right direction, and recruiting on a national level, as well as plucking some of the better players from inside the state. Pirate fans I’m sure feel Skip has them heading in the right direction as well. Should be fun to watch each program continue to evolve over the next few years.
February 8, 2008 at 11:42 am |
BTW- Coples teammate that Horns was referring to was Zach Brown, a highly ranked LB.
February 8, 2008 at 12:39 pm |
Heelatious, I try to offer some realistic insight to this board and don’t throw jabs at any other schools and you come back w/this. Obviously the recruiting rankings are different based on where you look. I read an article a few months ago w/that information and that is where I got it. However, hen you can get your football program above ours ON the field, then you can come talk to me about stars and this and that. Until then, enjoy the Purple Haze cast over you guys.
February 8, 2008 at 12:47 pm |
And here is what ESPN had to say about recruiting rankings. “Recruiting rankings don’t mean anything. It all comes down to coaching.” That should sum it up.
February 8, 2008 at 2:03 pm |
ECPirates11,
Wow, news flash, coaching is the biggest factor in determining on-field results. Where’d you park your squad car Dick Tracy. Of course coaching is the biggest factor, but if you think you can go and scrape the bottom of the barrel in recruiting year after year, and expect to field a winning team every year, you’re smoking crack. Recruiting plays a big part as well, simply put, it makes your job a whole lot easier as a coach, if you have a great stable of talent. Ask Skip if he would rather have to consistently try to coach up lesser talent, or be able to coach a higher caliber of talent year in and year out. That last part is the reason coaches like Skip, at mid-level jobs, in non-BCS conferences, eventually move on to bigger, more high profile, easier to recruit to, higher paying BCScoaching jobs.
I agree with you, coaching is the most important factor, but recruiting a more talented group of players helps out a great deal. Oh, enjoy your purple haze while it lasts, we’ll see you on the Hill in ’09. I predict a loooong, dissappointing drive back to Greenville for you and the rest of the pirate nation. This one won’t be decided by a last second field goal either.
February 8, 2008 at 2:29 pm |
Why don’t you both shut the hell up.
February 8, 2008 at 2:45 pm |
Lee? Dude…
February 8, 2008 at 3:29 pm |
I want to say. Good luck to Quinton and his teammate. You both “do you”. Where you go and what you do is your opinion. Comments on this blog is like a a**hole, everybody has one.
I agree with Lee. Who wants to keep reading those guys gaps at each other.
February 8, 2008 at 3:30 pm |
GO BO! GO BO! REPRESENTING THE NORTH CAROLINA. KHS REPRESENTING GOOD THINGS.
February 8, 2008 at 7:33 pm |
Sorry Hanks, but this crap goes on and on during football season. It’s always “HOW DARE YOU SLANDER US! WE DIDN’T HAVE THE 16TH BEST RECRUITING CLASS! WE HAD THE 30TH” and so on and so forth.
I’m a Pirate fan but I don’t go about rubbing crap in peoples faces about it. I do know this; in 2009, they’ll meet in Chapel Hill. THEN you can talk smack. But why does it matter now? It’s just recruiting, not a BCS or Championship game.
February 8, 2008 at 8:53 pm |
i agree but i have to say FC/AG back and forth won’t stop
February 9, 2008 at 11:25 pm |
Lee,
If you don’t want to read it, click on a different thread. ECpirates and I were having a conversation about recruiting, I don’t recall either of us asking for your opinion. If you have something to add on the recruiting front by all means comment, if not, take your own advice.
Do you think any of the rest of us give a crap about what classes you’re taking, and what time you take them, no, but if you want to talk about it fine, I don’t have to comment on that thread.
Just because you don’t know anything about a subject, such as recruiting, doesn’t mean you have to get up here with your typical smart*** remarks. I swear, sometimes I wish Hanks had an age limit for who posts on this blog.
February 10, 2008 at 3:51 am |
Perhaps because my posts are trying to invoke a damned flame war. The only thing you’re trying to do is see who has the bigger e-penis: nothing more and nothing less. If I want to tell a guy what my major is, then fine. However, was I rubbing it in his face and telling him what my class rank is all the while insulting the school he attends? No.
Besides, this is all you do on half the blogs. I’ll continue to be a smartass to people like you.
February 10, 2008 at 10:31 am |
BTW- That’s your second “e-I’m not going to type the it” reference. You might want to update your material, it’s going stale Lee.
It’s obvious you don’t know much about recruiting, so you feel threatened about something you know nothing about so you go back to your old standby, sarcasm. Whatever dude, as I mentioned above, have all the conversations you want about your college life, and how many kegs you went through, I don’t comment on those threads, because I’m far removed from those days, therefore I have no interest. Where exactly did I “rub his face” in it concerning recruiting.
If I was going to rub somebody’s face in something I would have brought up the fact that EZU takes partial qualifiers, which makes it a heckuva lot easier to get kids in. Kids in many instances that have no business going to college, because they have no desire to achieve anything academically. Heck, you guys might even wind up with Dwight Jones if he doesn’t qualify, I’m sure you won’t be crying if that happens.
February 10, 2008 at 11:04 am |
It has nothing to do with sarcasm and it has nothing to do with material. It’s called acting big and bad on the internet when you wouldn’t say this to anyone’s face, hence, your “electronic”-penis. Yet again, you dive into personal insults when I didn’t say a thing about recruiting. You have no idea what I know about the recruiting process because I never made a comment about.
You say I feel so threatened by it, but you’re the one typing paragraph after paragraph attempting to insult someone who just wanted you to stop bitching back and forth over something that was meaningless. I didn’t mean it to just you, I meant it to him too. Neither one of you were going to concede the argument, so better to attempt to stop it at the source. Well, I guess it was pointless, because you found something else to whine about.
Funny you should insult our academic standards, yet you lump all the ECU populace together with the same moral standards. Apparently we’re all just a bunch of drunk, STD-carrying mongrels, correct hellatious? They must not teach you about logical fallacies at UNC-CH, seeing as the last two paragraphs were full of hasty generalizations.
Oh wait, so that means that Chapel Hill is full of rabid homosexuals, correct? I mean, you wanted to generalize.
February 10, 2008 at 1:46 pm |
It’s not a generalization, it’s the truth, your school accepts partial-qualifiers for the purpose of athletic scholarships. That’s not personal insults Lee, that’s stating the facts. Louisville does the same thing. Whether it’s “insulting” to you, the rest of the student body, the school administrators, and your fan base is up to you. Call it what you want, but it IS lowering the academic standards of the school in order to let in athletes that may help your respective teams. BTW- Your welcome for Marcus Hands, and Khalif Mitchell, two such examples of kids that couldn’t cut the mustard academically at Carolina, but they found a home at EZU. I hope they are doing well in their studies now, but if you want to get ticked off because I’m stating the truth about the differences between the two schools academic entrance requirements, then you’re just uninformed, or choose to take cheap shots at me to cover for the truth.
As far as your self-proclaimed status as a school that, what is it, “Pre-games harder than you party”, I think that statement speaks for itself. Does that mean EVERY student at EZU subscribes to this theory, No, but it appears to be a banner that the vast majority of EZU students take on as a badge of honor. Again, it’s your individual choice on whether or not this is something you want to be proud of or not.
Lastly, again, if I am having a conversation, not trading insult barbs as you would suggest, with someone about a particular subject that you either choose not to, or have no pertinent information to add to said conversation, again don’t feel obligated to disperse your insults on us. What was that nugget of gold you revealed to us again…Oh, right, “Why don’t both of you shut the **** up. I guess that creative writing class is paying off after all.
February 10, 2008 at 7:28 pm |
I dont want to jump into the middle of anything going on…but I am proud of Q and the decisions he and his family have made. They have all worked out for him and helped him to achieve his dream. He should be commended for the sacrifice of giving up his senior year. Dont know too many 17 yr olds that would give up their senior year for the greater goal. Hope he does well at the Hill…he will be one of the few reasons I will ever put that baby blue on..lol lol lol lol.
February 11, 2008 at 9:12 pm |
I agree with you, Quinton made a decision that would make him a better player, a better student, and a better person. His family should be very proud, his coach had nothing but great things to say about him.