North Carolina continued its hot start to the 2017 recruiting class on Friday and it do so at a familiar place. Ryan Jones, a four-star athlete from Charlotte (N.C.) Mallard Creek, verbally committed to UNC on Friday morning.



Jones, a 6-foot-1, 199-pounder who played both wide receiver and defensive back for the NCHSAA 4AA champions, selected UNC over scholarship offers from Clemson, Florida, Georgia, NC State, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Virginia Tech.



The commitment comes less than a week after Jones attended UNC’s first junior day. He also attended a game last fall and has camped at the school.



With Jones’s commitment UNC now has five 2017 pledges – and all five are four-star prospects.



Four of the verbal commitments not only hail from N.C., but are considered among the state’s best – J.T. Cauthen, Jake Lawler, Jonah Melton, and now Jones.



This early group of stellar junior commitments is unprecedented at UNC. There's limited data available for recruiting rankings from more than two decades ago, but this certainly marks the best start to a Tar Heel recruiting class in the Internet era. And it comes following the team's 11-win 2015 season.



Just like with Cauthen and Lawler -- and the fifth 2017 UNC commitment Tyler Smith -- Gunter Brewer, who recruits the greater Charlotte area for UNC, was the lead recruiter for Jones.



In the 2011 class, UNC signed Marquise Williams out of Mallard Creek. Two classes later, it signed Brian Walker from the same high school. Those are just two of the dozens of prospects Mallard Creek has sent on to the FBS level since it opened in 2007.



https://twitter.com/RyanJonesD1/status/695645673941811200





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