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Wake Forest Football Preseason Thread

This, "let's see how long we can take to develop a play by handing off to a back standing dead still" offense will have trouble with this or any OL that is not Alabama like size and quality. Why Clawson and Ruggerio can't seem to figure this out is very puzzling and concerning to me. It also is so obvious where the ball is going when the QB trots back with their arm fully extended and puts the ball into (said) standing still RB, that the defense can proceed to swarm the RB before he even gets near the los. This leaves WHOEVER the QB is subject to getting killed because of having a one dimensional and predictable offensive "scheme" (and I use that word lightly) by being forced to pass with a 2nd and 3rd and very long. A little deception every once in a while would be a pleasant change but I don't think Ruggerio is capable of thinking outside the box, so to speak
 
The Ruggerio-led offense in 2013 at Bowling Green performed better than any offense Wake has had going back to at least 2008. I'm interested to see what the schemes look like when (and admittedly if) the staff knows that the offensive line isn't going to just get bowled over immediately every play.

"Ruggiero has been an offensive coordinator for 24 years at the college level at six different universities before Wake, and has tutored quarterbacks for 26 years at the college level. His offense has finished in the top 10 in the country in either total offense or scoring offense at all six stops. Ruggiero’s units have finished in the top six in the country in passing offense at the last four stops. He has coached an All-American QB at five of his last six coaching stops.

In 2013 Ruggiero’s BGSU offense finished fourth in the country in total offense (per possession), first in the nation in time of possession and first in the conference and 10th in the nation in passing efficiency behind a sophomore quarterback who was named the MVP of the conference championship game. "

I think we should dispel of this notion that Ruggerio doesn't know what he's doing.
 
What does "first in the nation in time of possession" mean?
They had long sustained drives OR they scored very quickly?
 
It bears noting that the offensive line that Wake Forest put on the field two years ago, and even last year, was one of the worst in NCAA history.

When you can't block anybody there is no offensive scheme that will mask that. Can you put band-aids on it and patch it up? Sure you can, but Clawson and Ruggerio weren't hired to do that. They were hired to build a program that can sustainably win games and make bowl games. That means implementing a system and establishing what you are going to be know for.

I think at this point in time, given what Ruggerio and Clawson have done at every single one of their previous stops, it's a bit foolish to question whether they are capable of "thinking outside the box", or can run an effective offense. If you want to question whether or not they can do it at this level that is certainly a reasonable question, and time will tell.

Personally I think this offense has the chance to have a solid year, and Ruggerio is the main architect behind that.
 
DeacsOrDie said:
What does "first in the nation in time of possession" mean?
They had long sustained drives OR they scored very quickly?
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It means they held the ball for the longest time in nation. Army and Navy usually have a lot of time of possession.

It would be interesting to see how ToP correlates to winning percentage. UNC and Baylor are near the bottom because of their quick strike offense, but obviously have fared well the past couple of seasons.
 
I think it's interesting that they had a really good passing attack and still led the nation in time of possession.
 
Deacsfan27 said:
It bears noting that the offensive line that Wake Forest put on the field two years ago, and even last year, was one of the worst in NCAA history.

When you can't block anybody there is no offensive scheme that will mask that. Can you put band-aids on it and patch it up? Sure you can, but Clawson and Ruggerio weren't hired to do that. They were hired to build a program that can sustainably win games and make bowl games. That means implementing a system and establishing what you are going to be know for.

I think at this point in time, given what Ruggerio and Clawson have done at every single one of their previous stops, it's a bit foolish to question whether they are capable of "thinking outside the box", or can run an effective offense. If you want to question whether or not they can do it at this level that is certainly a reasonable question, and time will tell.

Personally I think this offense has the chance to have a solid year, and Ruggerio is the main architect behind that.
Click to expand...

Agree. BTW, although still lacking in talent, in 2015, WF was among the most improved offenses in the country in points and yards per game. Why? Because the talent was better in 2015 than in 2014. This year, the talent is better than 2015, and it will again improve.
 
Pilchard said:
Agree. BTW, although still lacking in talent, in 2015, WF was among the most improved offenses in the country in points and yards per game. Why? Because the talent was better in 2015 than in 2014. This year, the talent is better than 2015, and it will again improve.
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To be fair, we also had more room to go up haha. The 2014 offense is probably the worst P5 offense ever.
 
Deacsfan27 said:
It means they held the ball for the longest time in nation. Army and Navy usually have a lot of time of possession.

It would be interesting to see how ToP correlates to winning percentage. UNC and Baylor are near the bottom because of their quick strike offense, but obviously have fared well the past couple of seasons.
Click to expand...

I'm always curious about this too. Intuitively, if ToP means you are sustaining long (scoring) drives and your defense is getting off the field, that's obviously positive. On the other hand, if winning ToP just means the other team is burning through your defense and you're sputtering on offense (speaking totally hypothetically here), it doesn't seem great. There's also the fact that teams that know they are overmatched may often try to grind down the clock on offense to reduce the overall number of possessions and increase the chance of pulling off a "fluke" win. Whenever I see ToP numbers, I'm not sure what to make of them.
 
SpringChicken said:
I'm always curious about this too. Intuitively, if ToP means you are sustaining long (scoring) drives and your defense is getting off the field, that's obviously positive. On the other hand, if winning ToP just means the other team is burning through your defense and you're sputtering on offense (speaking totally hypothetically here), it doesn't seem great. There's also the fact that teams that know they are overmatched may often try to grind down the clock on offense to reduce the overall number of possessions and increase the chance of pulling off a "fluke" win. Whenever I see ToP numbers, I'm not sure what to make of them.
Click to expand...

http://www.cfbstats.com/2015/leader/national/team/offense/split01/category15/sort01.html

Just a quick glance shows that 13 out of the top 15 teams in ToP made a bowl last year. The other two were 5-7.

Small sample size, but guessing there is a positive correlation to ToP and success.
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
The Ruggerio-led offense in 2013 at Bowling Green performed better than any offense Wake has had going back to at least 2008. I'm interested to see what the schemes look like when (and admittedly if) the staff knows that the offensive line isn't going to just get bowled over immediately every play.

"Ruggiero has been an offensive coordinator for 24 years at the college level at six different universities before Wake, and has tutored quarterbacks for 26 years at the college level. His offense has finished in the top 10 in the country in either total offense or scoring offense at all six stops. Ruggiero’s units have finished in the top six in the country in passing offense at the last four stops. He has coached an All-American QB at five of his last six coaching stops.

In 2013 Ruggiero’s BGSU offense finished fourth in the country in total offense (per possession), first in the nation in time of possession and first in the conference and 10th in the nation in passing efficiency behind a sophomore quarterback who was named the MVP of the conference championship game. "

I think we should dispel of this notion that Ruggerio doesn't know what he's doing.
Click to expand...


Pretty impressive resume.......
 
A ToP edge is usually a good thing, but teams that score a lot of points fast, like UNC (#126 out of 127), Baylor (#107) and Oregon (#112) had big offensive seasons in 2015 with large ToP deficits. For WF, a ToP edge is a positive.
 
Pilchard said:
A ToP edge is usually a good thing, but teams that score a lot of points fast, like UNC (#126 out of 127), Baylor (#107) and Oregon (#112) had big offensive seasons in 2015 with large ToP deficits. For WF, a ToP edge is a positive.
Click to expand...


One of the most beautiful things to watch in football is seeing an offense just run the ball at 4 and 5 yards a carry and just bleed the clock all day long. It's absolutely infuriating when a team is doing it to your team though.
 
DeaconForever said:
One of the most beautiful things to watch in football is seeing an offense just run the ball at 4 and 5 yards a carry and just bleed the clock all day long. It's absolutely infuriating when a team is doing it to your team though.
Click to expand...

The prime time game against Notre Dame at Groves a few years back was a great example of this.
 
Wake Forest Football Preseason Thread- Wolford named as the starter

DeaconForever said:
One of the most beautiful things to watch in football is seeing an offense just run the ball at 4 and 5 yards a carry and just bleed the clock all day long. It's absolutely infuriating when a team is doing it to your team though.
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The opening drive at Miami in 2008. 10 plays, 66 yards, 4:59. Thing of beauty. Haven't had too many of those since.
 
Too bad the staff stuck with that gameplan for the remainder of that game
 
For those of us that watched the Bill Dooley Deacs, on those occaisions when he had a lead late in the fourth quarter the man flat knew how to run the clock out.
 
Against Nebraska in '05 we out gained them and had the ToP advantage and lost by 28. Does being a Deacon fan mean that we hang our hats on stats instead of scores? For many years I did. The "Yeah, but" club had me as a member. I expect more out of Clawson. As for Ruggerio, its what have you done for me lately. His system worked against small, slow defenses of the MAC, but not against a bunch of pro prospects from F$U et al.
 
A couple of notes on the offense that I think are relevant to this discussion (I’ve posted this before, so apologies to those that have read it already).

ON THE SIZE OF THE PLAYBOOK:
Coach R said last November that the staff made a deliberate decision to dramatically reduce the size of the playbook because of all of the youth and inexperience. They wanted the younger players on offense to only run plays that they had gotten very familiar with in practice etc (I think he said he wanted them to “play faster” and could only do that if they were very familiar with the plays). Coach R sounded very eager to expand the playbook, but also sounded like that would depend on the how quickly the players were ready to take it on. My own opinion is that the more we see Cade Carney, Rocky Reid, Scotty Washington, Alex Bachman and Steven Claude (and maybe to a certain extent Kendall Hinton) the more limited the playbook will be. And it’s not like Tyler Bell, Ryan Anderson, Phil Haynes, Justin Herron and Cortez Lewis are grey haired at this point (it's worth noting that 15 of the 21 offensive players on my 2-deep are either freshmen or sophomores). But I don’t think it’s fair to call last year’s playbook “the scheme”.

ON THE OUTSIDE RUN GAME (OR LACK THEREOF):
Clawson said last year that they tried to install packages of outside runs during camp and it was a disaster (my word, not his). It was such a bad situation that they decided to take those run plays out of the playbook entirely and instead attack the edges solely using short pass plays. You can criticize the decision, but know that it was intentional and based on the staff’s evaluation of the players skill sets (especially the tights ends).

ON THE “DELAYED” RUN GAME / BLOCKING SCHEME
OK, so here’s where I come up empty. There’s obviously a growing chorus of concern about this, but to my knowledge the question hasn’t been asked and answered in a compelling way. But knowing just a little about how the staff operates I’d like to hear the staff’s explanation before passing too much judgment.
 
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