How N.C. State recruited and built its football team, one virtual meeting at a time
Demie Sumo came to N.C. State as a sophomore in high school, part of his teams 7-on-7 event.
The next time he returned to Raleigh, he was unpacking all of his stuff and moving into his dorm room. In between those two trips Sumo, a freshman running back from Willingboro, N.J., was offered a scholarship, committed and signed with the Wolfpack. All the while, he never returned to Raleigh for a visit, or even met his coaches in person.
Lyndon Cooper, from Carrollton, Ga., did see the campus, on an unofficial visit he took with his mom. The campus, starting at the Case Center parking lot, was all he saw. Because of COVID-19, recruits couldn’t enter the Murphy Center — the N.C. State football facility — at all. Situations like this weren’t unique to out of state targets Cooper and Sumo. Anthony Belton, another Georgia resident, never stepped foot on campus at all. Ever. Yet, all three committed to the Wolfpack, sight unseen.
It took some creativity from the coaching staff and recruiting department to lure members of the class of 2021, considering some players had to make a decision while meeting coaches, advisors and seeing the campus on a phone or computer screen.
“It was definitely different,” Merci Falaise, N.C. State’s Director of Player Personnel, told the News & Observer. “The whole recruiting for that class, it was a lot of Facetime to build relationships and get to know guys because you weren’t able to physically see everybody in person.”
Falaise spent a lot of time last off season on his phone. When a player wanted to see the Murphy Center, it was Falaise, a former player for the Wolfpack, on Facetime, walking around the building, showing the prospect the weight room, the locker room or the dining hall.
When Cooper and his mother showed up on their own dime, they called Falaise, who spent the entire time during their trek around campus on the phone with Cooper and company, giving them a virtual, guided tour.
Cooper had never been to Raleigh before. As a three-star recruit, he would normally have been afforded an official visit weekend, including visits with the coaches and a game-day experience at Carter-Finley Stadium — pretty much a red-carpet experience for 48-to-72 hours.
But the Zoom meetings and self-guided trip — with no in-person interaction with the coaches — was enough to convince him to sign.
Facetime calls and Zoom meetings with Wolfpack offensive line coach John Garrison each week won Cooper over, and he committed on July 20, 2020. The first time he got to meet the coaches in person was at the TaxSlayer GatorBowl on Jan. 2, in Jacksonville.
“It was kind of a relief that I could finally touch them,” Cooper joked. “Kind of make that connection as well.”
Complicating visits
The only thing Sumo remembered from his trip to the Murphy Center two years ago was a group of mannequins in the lobby that display the various N.C. State uniform combinations.
He returned to the Garden State and did enough as a junior (1,321 all-purpose yards, 19 touchdowns) to catch the eye of the Wolfpack staff. Sumo’s high school team was limited to three games the fall of his senior year, but the N.C. State coaches had seen enough to offer Sumo a scholarship.
Living in New Jersey, Sumo never returned to Raleigh for his own unofficial visit, and he wasn’t allowed an official visit. He didn’t get a chance to see N.C. State with his own two eyes.
Then, as if trying to tour a campus virtually wasn’t enough of a hardship, in the middle of the process, his lead recruiter, wide receivers coach George McDonald left to take a job at Illinois. Running backs coach Kurt Roper stepped in, taking over the Zoom calls and Facetime chats.
Sumo trusted his memory from the short visit as a sophomore, and the coaches over the phone, and he committed on July 1, 2020.
The only other campus he’d stepped foot on was Temple, 30 minutes from his hometown. But once he built a relationship with the coaches at N.C. State and made up his mind, Sumo wasn’t turning back.
“I would have never thought I would have ended up here,” Sumo said. “But I was ready, I knew what I wanted. When I know what I want, I’m fully committed.”
Living in New Jersey, Sumo didn’t see his future team play on television, but thanks to YouTube, he found a way to get familiar with the Pack. Sumo was a faithful viewer of N.C. State’s online series, ONE, which takes a weekly inside look at Wolfpack football.
“It (showed) practices and camp and Coach Doeren talking,” Sumo said. “I would watch that all the time.”
A blessing
Falaise coached for two seasons at Garden City Community College in Kansas. At the junior college level. he spent a lot of time selling the school over the phone to players who had never seen Kansas.
That experience was one on which he could draw when COVID forced the same type of situation in Raleigh.
“It was the same thing,” Falaise said. “That was really the first time I had to go through the process of showing guys that you can be successful at a place and them trusting my word.”
Falaise added that the track record of success under Doeren helped, but it ultimately came down to the guys trusting the process. Under normal circumstances, Falaise wouldn’t recommend committing to a school without stepping foot on campus, but 2020 was anything but normal.
The players realized what they missed out on with no official visits to campus or home visits from coaches, but they have no regrets.
“It was still a blessing,” Cooper said. “Some kids don’t get the opportunity to play college football, so we understood. God made it this way for a reason, so I’m not complaining.”
