OFFICIAL 2023 Wake Forest Demon Deacons Football Thread

[DCDeac]

I remember when we sucked and had to run a bunch of jet sweeps and trick plays and all kinds of nonsense just to try to be competitive.

Now we put up consecutive top 20 performances in the nation scoring-wise and folks are like "Clawson is stubborn! Run more gadgets and nonsense!"

 

[Deaconblue]

How about a trick play once a decade too?

Flea flicker would be easy to do out of the mesh. Just have the QB drop back after the hand off and then have the back toss it back. Line is in pass block all the time.

 

[CreamyGoodness]

I remember when we sucked and had to run a bunch of jet sweeps and trick plays and all kinds of nonsense just to try to be competitive.

Now we put up consecutive top 20 performances in the nation scoring-wise and folks are like "Clawson is stubborn! Run more gadgets and nonsense!"

People don't know what they have until it's gone.

 

[deacdixieboy]

People don't know what they have until it's gone.

Even schools like Clemson run trick plays. We put up a lot of points but we have our struggles and they usually come at the most inopportune times. That’s when you throw in a trick play to get things going again.

 

[Deaconblue]

I remember when we sucked and had to run a bunch of jet sweeps and trick plays and all kinds of nonsense just to try to be competitive.

Now we put up consecutive top 20 performances in the nation scoring-wise and folks are like "Clawson is stubborn! Run more gadgets and nonsense!"

Even good teams have a gadget or trick play they use once in a while. If for no other reason than to give opposing defenses one more thing to prep for.

"Philly Special" was a Superbowl TD. And the opposing Patriots ran a similar play.

I think many are saying that adding a few more pages to the playbook might be useful.

 

[CreamyGoodness]

Even schools like Clemson run trick plays. We put up a lot of points but we have our struggles and they usually come at the most inopportune times. That’s when you throw in a trick play to get things going again.

Yeah, a couple trick plays wouldn't hurt anything. There have only been a few games the last couple seasons that going to trick plays made sense tho. Not many teams have stopped our offense.

 

[thatguy2016]

I remember when we sucked and had to run a bunch of jet sweeps and trick plays and all kinds of nonsense just to try to be competitive.

Now we put up consecutive top 20 performances in the nation scoring-wise and folks are like "Clawson is stubborn! Run more gadgets and nonsense!"

I completely understand Clawson's hesitance to run trick plays. WF is successful in large part because we are well-practiced in the system we run.

However, we had a recruited quarterback at WR and we couldn't run a single play to have him make a throw (or, if the play isn't there, tuck and run)?!

 

[deacdixieboy]

I completely understand Clawson's hesitance to run trick plays. WF is successful in large part because we are well-practiced in the system we run.

However, we had a recruited quarterback at WR and we couldn't run a single play to have him make a throw (or, if the play isn't there, tuck and run)?!

If Nate Morton can throw TD’s from the WR position, then I’m sure Hinton could!

 

[BeachBumDeac]

a swing pass to the running back out of the backfield is our equivalent of a trick play

 

[Deaconblue]

a swing pass to the running back out of the backfield is our equivalent of a trick play

Did that a few times in Tampa.

 

[TheAbster]

Even good teams have a gadget or trick play they use once in a while. If for no other reason than to give opposing defenses one more thing to prep for.

"Philly Special" was a Superbowl TD. And the opposing Patriots ran a similar play.

I think many are saying that adding a few more pages to the playbook might be useful.

Correct. I was answering a specific question about how we could make the run game more integral to our offense. Unless we have a 5-star OL lined up next season, we're not going to plow over people. I'm not sure why this is hard to grasp. It's basic Physics. Many elite programs run trick plays or some variation. It's not some sign of weakness. Hell, Bobby Bowden made a living out of it with one of the top talented programs in the country!!

And, yes, Clawson is stubborn. That's not a bad quality but I think it's accurate.

 

[OldGouldandBlack]

Clawson can def be pretty stubborn/conservative, but I think that he sort of acknowledges that and realizes he probably can’t be stubborn AND boring, so has somehow successfully married that with being explosive the last few years and made us box office.

I don’t have super high expectations for next year, but we still have some awesome pieces returning and should be fun again (I hope).

 

[PhDeac]

The offense overall scores a lot of points but it fell off in the 4th quarter. Clutch scoring needs to improve to close out games.

 

[TheReff]

Our over/under this year was consistently 6.5 across the board pre-season.

Looked back before I posted at one of my pre-season newsletters that gives their picks of what he took and he went Under Wake 9 wins back in the summer as one of his bets.
So no, it was never 6.5 in the summer before injury news.

 

[TheReff]

I am actually interested to see if we continue to run the slow mesh at the same rate that we have been. New(er) offensive line and a new starting QB may change up some stuff.

I know we ONLY run it like 20% of the time, but it may be time for the next wrinkle to figure something better with our running game.

I think the slow mesh can continue to work well when the QB picks his spots several times a game to run. (Like Sam finally did in the 4th quarter on our clinching TD drive). Most of this season, I would imagine due to his surgery, he just didn’t pull it and run as much.
But I swear we seem so close to the line of scrimmage, the QB arm looks close to getting hit every time.

 

[Wakeforest22890]

Looked back before I posted at one of my pre-season newsletters that gives their picks of what he took and he went Under Wake 9 wins back in the summer as one of his bets.
So no, it was never 6.5 in the summer before injury news.

It was 8 and 8.5 during the Summer and dropped to 6.5 when Sam was out indefinitely. It stayed at 6.5 until the season started.

 

[80deacon]

Not sure why you are picking us over Duke. Don't understand playing them away again, but they beat us with Hartman, what leads you to believe we win? They loose practically no starters, have Mike Elko, and a good class incoming.

Duke is handling UCF and Gus Malzahn in their bowl to win their 9th game.

I'd say Duke likely blows us out unless we get about 8 D players through the portal.

I think we are in for a major downturn...3-4 Ws.

 

[ChrisL68]

The offense overall scores a lot of points but it fell off in the 4th quarter. Clutch scoring needs to improve to close out games.

Our offense was very poor at situational football. so many drives stalled on short yardage with RPO that when passing led to downfield passes instead of easy completions.

Hopefully Mitch is a better game manager which would really help the effectiveness.

 

[deacdixieboy]

Our offense was very poor at situational football. so many drives stalled on short yardage with RPO that when passing led to downfield passes instead of easy completions.

Hopefully Mitch is a better game manager which would really help the effectiveness.

Not only stalled. We’d be in a tight game and have a 10 second possession because we go fast and have a lot of incompletions that stop the clock.

 

[Deaconblue]

Our offense was very poor at situational football. so many drives stalled on short yardage with RPO that when passing led to downfield passes instead of easy completions.

Hopefully Mitch is a better game manager which would really help the effectiveness.

That is why I would like Wake to recruit a big back for short yardage situations. Somebody who could get a tough yard or two, not necessarily a guy who was a threat to go the distance whenever he got the ball.

And a staff who was more willing to do situational substitutions.