What goes into an official visit weekend at NC State?
College football, recruiting, the transfer portal and everything else around the sport is changing at a rapid pace. Following a few strategic hires, increased resources and a detailed plan, NC State’s staff continues to evolve right along with it.
June used to be mostly focused around camps and a few unofficial visitors. Now, it is the month when most prospects take their officials and many commit.
The Wolfpack’s visit schedule kicks off Friday, and the program heads into that stretch of the recruiting calendar with a reorganized staff and an unprecedented multimedia production awaiting the visitors.
Prospects spend up to 48 hours on campus during these trips, and it is often the coaching staff’s best opportunity to generate positive momentum heading into a decision. TheWolfpacker.com spoke with head coach Dave Doeren and several other members of the athletic department, discussing what goes into NC State’s revamped official visit strategy.
Looking back on last year and adapting for the present
Nicole Walton is the Wolfpack’s director of recruiting operations. She is the one pulling the strings behind the scenes to make sure the officials come together smoothly. In her opinion, evaluating past events and making the necessary changes is one of NC State’s most impressive strengths.
“I think this coaching staff, and staff as a whole, is really good at reflecting,” Walton said.
After going through last year’s official visit schedule, head coach Dave Doeren realized June on the recruiting calendar looks completely different than it used to. He saw the increased wave of official visits last summer and adjusted the program’s strategy.
“This June, yes, it’s going to be hectic and busy, but we’re better prepared for it,” Doeren said. “We understand what the last calendar was a year ago and how to tweak the timing of our camps so that we can have more time with the players when they visit.”
To help with the increased focus on summer recruiting, the Wolfpack hired Andy Vaughn as the program’s general manager. Bringing in Vaughn, who previously worked at Miami and Arizona State, was another step towards building up a staff that will help NC State compete for top prospects.
Doeren made sure to shout out Wolfpack administration for giving him the resources to expand the recruiting department.
“[Athletic director] Boo Corrigan deserves a lot of credit for allowing me to grow that staff,” Doeren said. “We were understaffed in that area, and we’ve been able to create more of an NFL model with Andy in the middle of it.”
Over the past year, NC State restructured its staff into two distinct areas of expertise— personnel and recruiting. The Wolfpack now has employees working in roles that include the program’s director of college scouting, an offensive player personnel director and a defensive player personnel director. Doeren said those are all positions that did not exist last year.
On the recruiting side, that staff can focus solely on coming up with strategies to convince athletes to join the Wolfpack. Vaughn leads both departments and makes sure communication is flowing well.
“It’s kind of a vision I had after the season,” Doeren said. “Boo helped me create these spots financially, and it’s been really good for our staff.”
Constructing a visit plan with the Wolfpack
This is where Walton’s job really shines. Whether the program wants to make a reservation at a restaurant in downtown Raleigh Friday night or set a Drive Shack outing for Saturday, the Wolfpack administrator figures out a plan with the coaches and puts the schedule in place.
Recruits will often set their visits for whenever they have an opening in their respective schedules, but there’s still strategy involved. NC State schedules prospects’ visits at the same time as commits, friends, teammates and does anything it can do to help make a positive impression over that two-day stretch.
Vaughn pointed out that this is the program’s best opportunity to wow a prospect, so the staff pulls out all of the stops.
“This is really a 48-hour period where we have to put our best foot forward,” Vaughn said. “We want to try to make the biggest impact on these guys and their families to give them the most information we can for their decision but also try to influence their decision as much as we can in a positive way for NC State.”
Going into this year’s visit schedule, Walton and NC State director of creative media Maurice Moses worked together to construct an opening to the officials that should generate a lot of excitement.
The importance of a grand entrance
Once the plan is in place, recruits begin to arrive on campus Friday afternoon. Vaughn stressed that the prospects need to be impressed from the minute they arrive at the facility.
“The first thing we’re going to do is just make sure that, in some way, we make them feel special, reinforce the fact that they’re wanted here so that they know, when they step on campus, that they’re all a high priority,” Vaughn said.
NC State hosts a reception at the start of each visit weekend so the recruits and their families can spend time with each other and the coaching staff. This year, it will look a little different. Photoshoots are some prospect’s favorite part of the trip, but they are also the most difficult thing to schedule.
Walton and Moses figured out a way to intertwine the reception and photoshoot together in order to help the weekend start in a special way.
“We’re going to have a whole bunch of different setups in the building, in the stadium, and it’s just going to be two-plus hours of everyone hanging out,” Walton said.
Visitors could play games in Carter-Finley Stadium, food will be available and Moses put his new visit plan, which includes 10 photo and video stations, into action. Through two visit weekends, recruits are raving about the results.
When he arrived at NC State in 2021, Moses’ department included him and Mike Jones, who now works for the Charlotte Hornets. Photoshoots either took place in the locker room, the Murphy Center lobby or in front of a white background.
Over the past couple of years, thanks to increased investment from the athletic department, that department has grown to three full-time employees. Hailey Parker and Nick Oerter work for the creative media department full-time, and they hired 17 interns as well. That helped unlock a whole new set of ideas that Moses is excited to implement this weekend.
“This is the first year where we’re actually going full-scale production,” Moses said. “Essentially, the same type of effort and energy that we will put into like our team’s intro video, we’re going to put into these recruiting shoots, so it’s going to be huge for us.”
What happens from there?
Following Friday’s reception, the visitors and coaches will head to dinner, and that will be a wrap on the first day’s organized activities.
The recruits have a busy schedule Saturday, with events ranging from a meeting with director of strength and conditioning Dantonio Burnette to a campus tour led by director of recruiting Merci Falaise and director of scouting Jatavis Sanders.
“You’re trying to always showcase why your program, why your university, why your city, your community is the best place for a young man to grow and develop,” Vaughn said.
“For us, it’s always going to be about how can we be as intentional, as impactful as we can so that we cater as much as possible to each recruit and family that comes through here?”
NC State also hosts a parent panel each weekend, which serves as an open question and answer forum, and the school sets up meetings between the visitors and professors.
When there are so many prospects on campus at any given moment, the staff has to make sure each prospect has a good time regardless of their history with the program. Alex Taylor has visited NC State 10 times, but Ronnie Royal III had never been on campus before last weekend. They took their officials at the same time, which required a balancing act by the staff.
Regardless of how the visit is personalized, the Wolfpack has a distinct brand that the staff clearly communicates during these trips.
“Coach Doeren is big about ‘We know who we are, we know what our brand is, we know who the players are that are going like it here,’” Walton said. “We kind of try and emphasize that in the things we do.”
The staff also looks to highlight Raleigh and all it has to offer, while also showing off the university in a way that does not necessarily have to do with football. This year, NC State planned to set up a Howling Cow ice cream bar at the Murphy Center to showcase the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Once the fall rolls around, NC State will have another huge recruiting tool at its disposal— a brand new video board that will be one of the largest in the nation. The Wolfpack will be able to play hype videos for the recruits while they watch from the field.
Celebrating a commitment to NC State
When defensive lineman Chase Bond visited NC State June 9-11, he realized he was ready to commit while still on campus. That is obviously an exciting development for the coaching staff and happens pretty regularly during these visit weekends.
Vaughn emphasized that, while it depends on how the recruit wants to share the news, they want to make sure the prospect knows their decision means a lot to NC State.
“If they’re here, we’re going to make a big deal out of it and celebrate that with with all of the other recruits and their families that are around so that people can see that we’re genuine, that relationships matter to this staff and that we’re going to always be excited when something positive happens for the program,” Vaughn said.
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