Class Autopsy

NC State 2023 — what happened to every signee.

NC State’s 2023 class brought in 15 signees. 1 reached the NFL, 1 of them from a different school.

15
signees, National Signing Day 2023
1
reached the NFL, 1 from elsewhere.

The journey stack

One row per signee, ranked by signing-day national rank. Each chit is a stop; the line between them is a transfer. Open a row for the season-by-season record.

Daemon Fagan
No.312 national · S
nc-stateNCST
StayedNever transferred
NC State — 2023: unscored, 2024: unscored, 2025: 0.0
Javonte Vereen
No.365 national · TE
nc-stateNCSTuconnUCONN
1 transferUConn
NC State — 2023: 23.0, 2024: unscored
UConn — 2025: 51.0
Zack Myers
No.406 national · ATH
nc-stateNCST
StayedNever transferred
NC State — 2023: unscored, 2024: unscored, 2025: 0.0
Darion Rivers
No.481 national · OT
nc-stateNCST
StayedNever transferred
NC State — 2023: unscored, 2024: unscored, 2025: unscored
Kendrick Raphael
No.488 national · RB
nc-stateNCSTcaliforniaCAL
1 transferCalifornia
NC State — 2023: 35.0, 2024: 42.0
California — 2025: 55.0
Brandon Cisse
No.506 national · CB
nc-stateNCSTsouth-carolinaSC
R2 · #52Green Bay
NC State — 2023: 13.0, 2024: 29.0
South Carolina — 2025: 54.0
Green Bay · 2026 draft — No. 52 overall, round 2.
Kevin Concepcion
No.568 national · WR
nc-stateNCST
StayedNever transferred
NC State — 2023: 78.0, 2024: 53.0, 2025: 81.0
Isaiah Shirley
No.695 national · DL
nc-stateNCST
StayedNever transferred
NC State — 2023: unscored, 2024: 8.0, 2025: 0.0
Kamen Smith
No.857 national · OT
nc-stateNCST
StayedNever transferred
NC State — 2023: unscored, 2024: unscored, 2025: unscored
Kamal Bonner
No.1023 national · LB
nc-stateNCSTmiamiMIA
1 transferMiami
NC State — 2023: 0.0, 2024: 45.0
Miami — 2025: 0.0
Lex Thomas
No.1055 national · QB
nc-stateNCST
StayedNever transferred
NC State — 2023: unscored, 2024: 22.0, 2025: 31.0
Kelvon Mcbride
No.1062 national · LB
nc-stateNCST
StayedNever transferred
NC State — 2023: unscored, 2024: 19.0, 2025: 0.0
Showing 12 of 15

The receipts

No recruiting service wrote a word here. The national rank was the promise; what happened next is the whole story.

Drafted — elsewhere

“The No. 506 player in America.”

signed NC State → drafted from elsewhere

Drafted No. 52 overall, round 2 — by a program that never signed him.

Never made the league

“The No. 312 player in America.”

signed NC State → never drafted

Peak grade of 0 on our 0–100 scale.

The report card

Star power and cohesion are graded against all 297 qualifying classes, 2021–2023. NFL production and on-field value are graded against just the 107 other 2023 classes — a 2023 signee simply hasn’t had as many draft-eligible years as a 2021 signee, so those two dimensions compare like-for-like instead of penalizing recency. Overall GPA still ranks across all 297.

F
Star power
13 recruiting points
B
Cohesion
67% never transferred
A
NFL production
1 drafted, vs. 2023 peers
C
On-field value
mean peak grade 34.5, vs. 2023 peers

The class the draft ignored

NFL production, 2023 signing classes in NC State’s conference

NC State’s 1 draft picks against every other qualifying class its conference signed the same year.

drafted: 100%
3
drafted: 67%remaining: 33%
2
NC State
drafted: 33%remaining: 67%
1
remaining: 100%
0
remaining: 100%
0
remaining: 100%
0
remaining: 100%
0
remaining: 100%
0
remaining: 100%
0
remaining: 100%
0
Source CFB Index · player_recruiting_profiles + player_nfl_draft

The fine print

Other ways to read the same class.

Star-weighted retention
67%
Of the class’s combined star rating, this much stuck around.
Fed the conference
2
Transfers that landed at another program in NC State’s current conference.
Dropped a level
0
Signees whose portal move landed below FBS.
The quiet middle
8
Never transferred, never drafted, 3-star or below. The class nobody writes about.