Wow. As mentioned in the previous posts, lots of news in the article posted on the official site.
Here’s a breakdown:
POSITION CHANGES – Chuck Wade to outside receiver and Malik Grate to corner. I expect that there will be some people on these boards that will be pleased with the Wade news. I’ll update the depth charts in the OP. With Grate moving to corner that leaves Wake with only six scholarship receivers (assuming Claude does not return) until the freshman arrive. That should make the spring game a challenge. While the article says that Wade will play both positions, I would expect that the pairings will be Lewis/Washington at X, Wade/Bachman at S, and Hines/Dortch at slot. It becomes more important now that Dortch prove that he is more than a special teams guy. That will be something to keep an eye on this spring. Also, it will be very important for that group to stay healthy if we want any hope of redshirting the freshmen.
QB COMPETITION – Of course there was confirmation that Hinton will battle Wolford for the starting job (Hinton starts camp as the #1), that was expected, but the bigger news seemed to be the acknowledgement that the reps will be distributed between three QBs (instead of two like last year) and that Kearns and Newman will battle early in camp to determine who the third QB will be. I’m happy with this news. Wolford and Hinton likely won’t stay healthy, and neither one plays well when injured, so it makes complete sense to get a third QB ready to go.
Here is the excerpt from the article on the official site:
“It’s really important between (Jamie) Newman and (Kyle) Kearns that we get one of them ready to play,” said Clawson. “In my meetings with John and Kendall, I tell them that everybody within our walls and outside of our walls wants us to have one quarterback. And we do too. But those two guys haven’t stayed healthy for more than two or three games at a time for the last two years. We’re repping them equally with the ones. Kendall is the starter but John’s getting a lot of reps with the ones because he has to. And I told them we have to get a third quarterback ready because neither of you have stayed healthy. I think one of the battles that people won’t talk about is between Jamie and Kyle. It’s tough to get three quarterbacks ready, you can’t get four (ready). So that competition between Kyle and Jamie, we’ll have to prepare our third quarterback because if we don’t, we’re just not being prudent.”
INJURIES – Bell out with a torn ACL means increased reps for Arkeem Byrd and Christian Beal. Clawson has made fairly clear on a few occasions that there is room for 3 running backs to get carries. I’d expect the third to be Byrd, but Beal will get the opportunity to compete.