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OFFICIAL 2023 Wake Forest Demon Deacons Football Thread

TimmyClutch said:
I believe we have all come to realize that it is not just quarterback issues affecting this team. My question is are our problems due to talent or scheme?

If it’s a talent issue, which I suspect it is, is it due to an inability recruit or an inability to develop talent? Our recruiting classes tend to be in the middle when it comes to yearly rankings, but is the staff unable to deduce who will become a P5 level player or are they unable to develop the recruits we do get?

While I am not attempting to minimize the impact of the transfer portal or NIL, outside of a couple big names, Wake has not see the wholesale departure that other schools have, and has actually used the portal to our advantage in the past.

I would also put forward the idea that part of the issue can be traced back to the 2019 recruiting class, which has not been the impact one would hope.
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Think it is mostly a QB issue. If you put Wolford/Newman/Hartman on this team, think its probably a 7-to-9 win team pretty easily.

It also seems that Clawson is just genuinely shocked at how bad Griffis was in live action. So there is both of mis-evaluation of talent and maybe a bit of chance that whatever looked good in practice did not transfer to the field.

Now, if you want to say why can't we get over the hump of .500 in the ACC, then I think you just have to start looking at the overall talent of the roster year in and year out.

We have run into a season where we have no good options at QB for really the first time in the Clawson era. I expect us to look at the portal this offseason for an option.

The only benefit we may see from an awful season is the immediate need to really dump money in the NIL fund and increase portal activity next season. And that would become clear to every donor.

It seems silly that we didn't make a real offer to keep Hartman. $1M would have been a good deal for WF to make another decent bowl game and if we had started with 4 or 5 straight wins, we'd be right back in the rankings and millions worth of PR and probably marketing opportunities for individual athletes.
 
I'm not sure how anyone could watch this team over the past four games and not also think this is an OL issue. Mitch Griffis has struggled, but Kern came in and was hit twice in the pocket causing fumbles; that should happen only a couple times a year; right now, it happens in every quarter for WF.

Even though every opponent stacks the box, WF rarely throws anything more than 8 yards beyond the LOS now because no QB has the time to make deep throws. Every game looks like the Hartman six TO game at L'ville right now because opposing defenses live in the WF backfield. Would love to have Caleb Williams at QB, but even he can't make plays when there is no time to throw.
 
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Everything that folks are saying is basically true as far as what the flaws are - there's no real need to just try to blame one aspect of the offense.

The line has been horrid
The RB's have blown pass block after pass block
Receivers are dropping passes
Griffis just couldn't make a decision in the pocket, and when he did, it was usually the wrong one.
Haven't really seen enough of Kern in-game yet to determine what he's got, but he's at least making confident decisions when he has time (in a very limited sample size).
The offensive playbook either hasn't, or can't, make up for the deficiencies across the board.

I don't think these are problems that will be fixed in the middle of the season to make a bowl game. Especially with a schedule like we have.
 
That’s why the discussions of Hartman would be in the Heisman running, or he would be undefeated, or we’d win up to nine games with a better quarterback, have not had the ring of authenticity with me. We have problems in a number of areas.
 
Welp we finished the season losing both games to our “rivals” by double digits. Hooray!
 
Pilchard said:
I'm not sure how anyone could watch this team over the past four games and not also think this is an OL issue. Mitch Griffis has struggled, but Kern came in and was hit twice in the pocket causing fumbles; that should happen only a couple times a year; right now, it happens in every quarter for WF.

Even though every opponent stacks the box, WF rarely throws anything more than 8 yards beyond the LOS now because no QB has the time to make deep throws. Every game looks like the Hartman six TO game at L'ville right now because opposing defenses live in the WF backfield. Would love to have Caleb Williams at QB, but even he can't make plays when there is no time to throw.
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Of course it's both. The OL has been bad, bad. But Hartman is so much of an upgrade that we'd almost assuredly have been 5-0 going into last week, and I'm guessing we'd have won vs. VT as well.
 
Losing AT and Donovan really hurt. That’s 2 NFL receivers. Bring Sam and those two back and things wouldn’t be nearly as bleak.
 
WF lost 30-13 to VT. No player is worth 18 points. I love Sam Hartman, but not sure how people are forgetting his meltdowns when pressured. That has been the recipe for every loss this season too, and the OL and the RBs protected better over the past 4 years than this year.

As for the VT game, Kern entered the game at the 14:49 point in the 2nd quarter. The score of the game was 0-0, and WF had a first down on the VT 30. Kern was injured at the 2:38 point of the 4th quarter. I thought Kern was an improvement over Griffis, and WF was outscored 30-13 (with KO return for a TD; so, 30-6 while QBs controlled the play) while Kern played and Griffis did not; WF was dominated when Griffis wasn't taking a snap. Realize that Hartman is a better QB than either Kern or Griffis, but WF was not winning on Saturday with Pat Mahomes at QB.

FWIW, the three years at Pat Mahomes played at Texas Tech, the Red Raiders went 16-21, including 5-7 and no bowl in Mahomes last year. QB is a vitally important position, but even an excellent QB can't turn a bottom of the league team to a contender.
 
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Any details on Kern's injury, time he will be out, etc?
 
As mentioned by Timmy Clutch in another thread, Kern is out for the Pitt game. Any additional info might be disclosed (probably not) in tomorrow's Clawson presser. If Kern is already ruled out this soon before Saturday, that would seem to indicate that the injury is not a day to day thing, but a longer term thing.
 
I hate to hear Kern is out because he did a pretty decent job under the circumstances. After seeing Kern play, I'm still not sure why Clawson was so adamant about leaving Mitch in
 
Could it be as simple as a 5’9” sidearm QB just cannot play at this level.
 
But it’s not that simple because our coach thought he could.
 
I tell ya, we are battling UVA for bottom of the division this year. I don't think anyone expected this bridge year to crater like this. UVA is at least 1-2 against top 25 teams, heck even Pitt is 1-3 against top 25 teams with 2 conference wins. We are only gonna face 2 top 25 teams all year.
 
TimmyClutch said:
I tell ya, we are battling UVA for bottom of the division this year. I don't think anyone expected this bridge year to crater like this. UVA is at least 1-2 against top 25 teams, heck even Pitt is 1-3 against top 25 teams with 2 conference wins. We are only gonna face 2 top 25 teams all year.
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Even when other teams suck, they can get an upset. WF can never get a big upset
 
Alright, so I have a reason to try to be excited for one more game, does anyone have any idea how many teams are currently bowl eligible, who is ahead of us in APR, etc.? I can at least try to get excited about backing into a bowl game.
 
Sorry if this was posted on another thread, but even with the season that the Deacs just struggled through WF had 6 ACC honorees:



IIRC, this the 3rd time Jurgens has been recognized. Going to miss him.
 
Didn't want to make a new thread. Heard Jay Sawvel will be the new head coach at Wyoming. I know you guys loved him.
 
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