Q&A: NC State recruiting coordinator Des Kitchings
On signing day, NC State recruiting coordinator and running backs coach Des Kitchings did an interview with The Wolfpacker. Here are highlights from that conversation.
How did this class evolve because at this time last year it was expected to be a smaller class? Did your needs also change from what you expected?
It turned out a little bigger. One part was we had awarded maybe five walk-ons with scholarships for a year, so we were able to gain those back to help us with the numbers. We had a few guys for different reasons that are no longer on the team, which is unforeseeable. You expect maybe one or two, but it was a little bit higher. That added to our allotment.
A focal point going into this recruiting process was to get longer at wideout. Once we needed more DBs, we started bringing in longer guys there.
Our focus shifted to that, and we attacked that. We had our eyes on certain guys and just stayed true to it.
How difficult is it to find longer guys, especially at DB?
We can go find a long guy, but that doesn’t mean he’s athletic enough or skilled enough to come and play against the people that we have to play against. That’s the challenge.
The live evaluations we make, the different combines and things players go to, and getting them on campus are all part of the process.
Was the original plan to sign seven offensive linemen?
No it wasn’t, but looking at our roster again, that’s a position we needed to get longer and more athletic. There were some kids it was hard to say no to that brought a lot of good attributes to us — the Gees and Sculthorpes that are interior linemen but are athletic and tough and just have something about them.
Everything starts up front. We want to be able to win in the trenches and put our skill players in a position to do something.
Is it a coincidence that a lot of the linemen are leaner guys who have been building up their bodies in high school or is that something you guys actively look for?
A lot of them are coming from good programs where the strength and conditioning at the high schools are a natural progression of that.
That’s the thing with the recruiting now: it’s fast. You identify these kids when they are ninth and 10th graders now, and there’s a bit of a projection where you are thinking, ‘His shoulders are that wide, and he’ll fill out’ or ‘His hips are a little narrow, I don’t know if he’ll get big enough.’ That’s the inexact science of this thing.
You only had one decommitment in this class. How do you approach holding onto these kids?
It’s harder. On the flipside, if I am recruiting a kid and he decides to commit to another school, I know exactly who my competition is. It becomes more isolated.
I think a lot of schools look at us and the kids we have committed. They may have recruited them and now want to come back into the picture. We encountered a lot of that in December. That’s supposed to be a dead period , but we were fighting just as hard with our kids as if it were in the contact period, especially this last cycle with all the coaching turnover.
We said at the end of the season: ‘Strap it on cause it’s going to be a zoo out here.’ We just try to fight it to the end.
You almost approach it like you recruit them as if they were uncommitted?
You definitely do that. With all the social media and different things now, when these kids commit and start to come to campus for games, they start to build a bond among themselves. Hopefully, that bond with their peers is harder to break than the bond with me against another recruiter who doesn’t have as much access with them.
You try to use that as another ally for you.
NC State only has 11 seniors next year. How will that affect recruiting?
We'll have a smaller class again. We have a couple of guys already committed in that class, and that reduces what we have going forward. We’re basically trying to isolate exactly what we want. We have an idea but still have to get it fine-tuned.
What will be the priorities in the next class?
We didn’t sign a running back in this class, so that will be a focal point. We still would like to get longer at linebacker. You can’t have enough of those guys on the roster because of the special teams emphasis that goes with that.
Defensive end, though, is a No. 1 priority for us in this class.