Wake Forest Football Preseason Thread

Speaking of Armstrong, a speedster that Grobe brought in. Well he played a true freshman in Grobes final year where Grobe tried to save himself by not redshirting a bunch of freshman, would he (and the staff) be interested in redshirting this year to produce as something next year?

Obviously there are plenty of factors that point to "no" but if I were Armstrong who has tried to learn 3 different positions while at wake, why not take. A redshirt year and try to make sormthing outta his Redshirt senior year.

It's cold to say, but I'd think Claw would rather give that 'ship to a guy who will be here and help his program until 2020. If it ain't happening by now, maybe it ain't gonna happen.

DEACS76 said:

It's cold to say, but I'd think Claw would rather give that 'ship to a guy who will be here and help his program until 2020. If it ain't happening by now, maybe it ain't gonna happen.

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yep

Here were the first and second team defenses that I captured in my notes yesterday. Duke Ejiofor, Cam Serigne, Cam Glenn, Amari Henderson, Phil Haynes, Tyler Bell and Taleni Suhren were among the players missing with injury.

Wolford and Hinton split 1st and 2nd team reps. Cade Carney, Matt Colburn, Rocky Reid and Arkeem Byrd also split 1st and 2nd team reps with Carney getting the first turn with the ones.

First Team Offense
X-WR Lewis
S-WR Bachman
SLOT Hines
LT Herron
LG Hayworth
C Terry (for the first series, then Harris)
RG Gilliam (Haynes missed with injury)
RT Anderson
TE Freudenthal

Second Team Offense
X-WR Washington
S-WR Claude
SLOT Wade
LT Benzinger
LG Haney (Osterhage moved here after Haney left with an injury)
C Osterhage and Terry
RG Gilliam and Osterhage
RT Watson

First Team Defense
DE Dunn*
DE Shaw*
DT Yarbary*
DT Banks* (per Dan Collins article, I didn’t catch Banks in my notes for some reason)
(* DLs were frequently rotated, so lots of players saw snaps with the first team)
LB Williams
LB Lee
ROVER Brown
CB Watson
CB Austin
S Bates
S Janvion

SECOND TEAM DEFENSE
DE Calhoun*
DT Bateman*
DT Stewart*
DE Black*
(* DLs were substituted frequently)
LB Dawson
LB Strnad
ROVER Kemp
CB Bassey
CB Armstrong
S Redd
S Okonye

Some observations from yesterday:

PASSING GAME

Wolford and Hinton weren’t terribly inspiring (as passers) yesterday, but they certainly weren’t terrible either. Neither one completed a pass longer than 14 yards. Wolford completed 15 of 22 with an average completion of 7 yards. Hinton completed 13 of 21 with an average completion of 8 yards.

Wolford’s INT came when his arm appeared to get hit towards the end of his delivery. Wolford’s stats would have looked better if Cortez Lewis hadn’t dropped a long pass that would have been one of the few highlights of the day.

Yesterday was a reminder for me that Hinton throws the ball with more zip than Wolford. As a passer I thought Hinton looked better than the spring game.

With Wolford and Hinton looking comparable as passers, attention is obviously going to turn to how good Hinton looked when running the ball. Hinton’s beautiful 56 yard TD run easily could have been called down early in the run under the scrimmage rules where QBs were downed by touch, but the ref let them play on and no one came close to Hinton after that initial touch.

Kyle Kearns had the best drive of the day when he took the field for the first time with the 3s. His two passes to Jeremiah Brown (a 45 yard strike followed by a 12 yard touch pass to the corner) were both simply outstanding. Kearns throws a great ball. There’s no question about that. However, Kearns second series was done in by Brown who bobbled a pass that was on the money and led to a Kearns INT. Don’t blame that one on Kearns.

The biggest regret that I have from yesterday was missing Jamie Newman’s 4-for-4 TD drive at the very end of the scrimmage. I would have liked to have seen and written about that.

RUNNING GAME

Good News: Carney had a 21-yard run. Byrd had a 14 yard run. Reid had a 10 yard run.
Bad News: Other than the three carries noted above, Carney, Byrd and Reid averaged just under 1.5 yards on their other 19 carries. Yikes. Then throw in Matt Colburn’s 5 carries for -1 yards. Double yikes.

Dom Maggio's three live punts: 53 , 52 & 46. The ball explodes off his foot.

PAT & FG operation time. The first team looked very smooth & fast. Only miss was a badly hit ball by Weaver. I don't know what happened on that one.

A few other notes that I forgot about until now:

Greg Dortch took a very short (1-2?) yard completion and tried to improvise by retreating behind the line of scrimmage and reversing the field. He made a few guys miss and managed to turn the play into a 10 yard gain before having his juke moves ended by a solid open field hit from DeAndre Delaney. It will be interesting to see if he can stay healthy whenever he begins to see regular playing time.

I think it was Tabari Hines who had a smooth looking catch and run TD called back for a holding penalty.

Flags seemed to be flying all day long on the second team OL. Both pre-snap and holding calls. That meant Wolford and Hinton were facing a lot of unfavorable down-and-distance situations when they took reps with the second team.

Thanks to Tylerkong on the reminder about Maggio. I didn't watch him closely but there was a lot of buzz at Fan Fest about his performance.

Thanks for the report. I was encouraged by Hinton's passing stats that were very comparable to Wolford's. The continuing struggles with the running game are a concern.

Dom Maggio's three live punts: 53 , 52 & 46. The ball explodes off his foot.

This is pretty exciting.
I know we don't want to punt too often, but it you have to, much better to have a great punter.
We've had many over the years, and, as of now, it doesn't look like we'll have an drop off following the Kinal years

What is the difference formation wise between the x and s receiver positions?

As the years pass, I remember more and more fondly the Chris Barclay era of Deacon Football, when we ran it on just about everybody we played. That was a long time ago now.

DeacLaw05 said:

As the years pass, I remember more and more fondly the Chris Barclay era of Deacon Football, when we ran it on just about everybody we played. That was a long time ago now.

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Those were fun days

Tylerkong said:

Dom Maggio's three live punts: 53 , 52 & 46. The ball explodes off his foot.

PAT & FG operation time. The first team looked very smooth & fast. Only miss was a badly hit ball by Weaver. I don't know what happened on that one.

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Well he might set a record for a rookie punter if we can't run the ball any better this year.

Year 3 of Clawson era. This team needs to develop a running game.

Deac94 said:

RUNNING GAME

Good News: Carney had a 21-yard run. Byrd had a 14 yard run. Reid had a 10 yard run.
Bad News: Other than the three carries noted above, Carney, Byrd and Reid averaged just under 1.5 yards on their other 19 carries. Yikes. Then throw in Matt Colburn’s 5 carries for -1 yards. Double yikes.

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this is just incredible. and it's not like they are running against the Syracuse front 7.

When was the last time we had a legitimately decent offensive line? I honestly can't remember.

Maybe we're just hiding our dominance from prying eyes just like LOBO did. We're not young anymore. We shouldn't be weak anymore. NO MORE EXCUSESS!

Its beginning to look like offensive Clawson's disaster at UT is more a signature than an anomaly. Getting to the point where he should be looking to find an energetic, aggressive OC to replace the high school- pee wee football offense we run. Asking out-manned OL to hold blocks for slow developing, slow footed backs is just stupid and as Deas76 points out- Lobo-esque. Lets hope Clawson is moe imaginative and less stubborn than Grobe. There needs to be a change with the scheme and offensive plan. Starting to be scary.

Do most/all of the rushing attempts by RB start from a shotgun snap, followed by a 'read' hand-off to the back, like years before? Ugh!

Lohengrin said:

Thanks for the report. I was encouraged by Hinton's passing stats that were very comparable to Wolford's. The continuing struggles with the running game are a concern.

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Well, if you are a glass is half full type person you can focus on the fact that the offense managed rushes of 21, 14 and 10 yards yesterday. That's something to build on.