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Coach Clawson conference call with former players

Call with former players yesterday at 11am. Tough to say how many were on the line but seemed like a lot more beeps than in past years.

Steve Vallos opened the call introducing Coach Clawson and Barry Faircloth and turned it over to Coach Clawson.

Clawson started by briefly highlighting last season’s successes saying how proud he was of the way the team finished the year winning three of the last four games after suffering 14 season-ending injuries. I chuckled when he talked about, “beating Duke at Duke in a very hard fought, extremely close football game.” Zing!

He mentioned winning the third straight bowl game and following that up with the highest rated recruiting class of his tenure here. Also noted signing three four-star recruits and how we’re gradually starting to win recruiting battles like we did with our two in-state wide receivers.

Mentioned the April 6 Spring Game and the football career night the night before. The more of us that come back the better and it’s something the staff is selling in recruiting. Noted that we have had as many as 180 former players back for that event. We want this to be a program where there’s a connection between the past and present.

He opened the floor for questions.

Someone asked about current injuries. Coach spoke about Justin Herron who will be back next year and 5 others that, although they won’t be available for spring practice, will be ready by August.

Riley Skinner asked about Sam, how he’s feeling, and the quarterback competition in the spring.
Sam is healthy and is full go in the spring. Jamie finished the year really strong. We have a good problem of having two good quarterbacks. Also really excited about Michael Kern who joined the team mid-year.

Riley followed up regarding whether Sam and Jamie run the same offense. Coach said they run the same offense but it was tricky last year because for the first half Jamie wasn’t healthy and for the second half Sam wasn’t. So we ran the quarterback more towards the very end of the season because we had to win to make a bowl. Not having two healthy quarterbacks restricted the play calling before that. He mentioned being careful of how many hits you want an RPO quarterback to take when you don’t have depth at the position. The last few weeks we had the ability to run Jamie and that helped us win.

A question was asked about whether Kendall Hinton was fitting in. Coach said Kendall was really really good last year when healthy and that he has a chance to be a very high level player for us. He’s bigger than Greg and probably faster than Greg. And could help in the return game. He said, “we’re excited about our recruiting class but Kendall might be the best recruit we got.”

I commended him for signing 10 of the top 25 recruits in Wake history in this class and I asked how else we could help the program continue to move forward in recruiting and otherwise. Having our involvement makes a difference. When Miami "had it going" there was a connection between current and former players and you’d always see former players on the sidelines. The more consistent our presence is the better it is for our program. Five years ago we were facility poor and budget poor. We’re no longer facility poor, but we need to do things to build an endowment so that we’re not budget poor. Spread the word that Wake is a top-notched location and that Wake has something to do with our successes. We have to stop looking at ourselves as a program that only gets the recruits others didn’t want. Our top three recruits had tons of offers. We’re not happy with where we are. We don’t have an 80,000 seat stadium so our former players have to be there with their presence, but also financially, to keep us moving forward.

Ben Wooster asked what are we doing to increase the student body at games. We’re playing good football with good players and we’re winning. This is what we’re presenting to the student body. Now being a nationally-ranked school we get students from all over the country who perhaps didn’t grow up as Wake fans. All we can do is play good football.

Steve gave a facility update regarding the Sutton Sports Performance Center and noted that it contains new meeting rooms, new coaches offices, etc. Facilities help us compete with the big boys. He reiterated the importance of us showing up April 5-6 and especially for the Friday night career networking event. Invited formers players to come back and make connections with current players to help their transition into the real world. (Yours truly was one of two keynote speakers last year.) Spring game Saturday afternoon. Tour of the facility that Saturday morning. Really need all of us back for the event.
 
Wow. Great report. Interesting how the game-planning/play calling evolved when WF essentially got into playoff mode. Love how Clawson is strengthening ties with our football alumni. Such a smart decision.
 
MagicDeac said:
Call with former players yesterday at 11am. Tough to say how many were on the line but seemed like a lot more beeps than in past years.

Steve Vallos opened the call introducing Coach Clawson and Barry Faircloth and turned it over to Coach Clawson.

Clawson started by briefly highlighting last season’s successes saying how proud he was of the way the team finished the year winning three of the last four games after suffering 14 season-ending injuries. I chuckled when he talked about, “beating Duke at Duke in a very hard fought, extremely close football game.” Zing!

He mentioned winning the third straight bowl game and following that up with the highest rated recruiting class of his tenure here. Also noted signing three four-star recruits and how we’re gradually starting to win recruiting battles like we did with our two in-state wide receivers.

Mentioned the April 6 Spring Game and the football career night the night before. The more of us that come back the better and it’s something the staff is selling in recruiting. Noted that we have had as many as 180 former players back for that event. We want this to be a program where there’s a connection between the past and present.

He opened the floor for questions.

Someone asked about current injuries. Coach spoke about Justin Herron who will be back next year and 5 others that, although they won’t be available for spring practice, will be ready by August.

Riley Skinner asked about Sam, how he’s feeling, and the quarterback competition in the spring.
Sam is healthy and is full go in the spring. Jamie finished the year really strong. We have a good problem of having two good quarterbacks. Also really excited about Michael Kern who joined the team mid-year.

Riley followed up regarding whether Sam and Jamie run the same offense. Coach said they run the same offense but it was tricky last year because for the first half Jamie wasn’t healthy and for the second half Sam wasn’t. So we ran the quarterback more towards the very end of the season because we had to win to make a bowl. Not having two healthy quarterbacks restricted the play calling before that. He mentioned being careful of how many hits you want an RPO quarterback to take when you don’t have depth at the position. The last few weeks we had the ability to run Jamie and that helped us win.

A question was asked about whether Kendall Hinton was fitting in. Coach said Kendall was really really good last year when healthy and that he has a chance to be a very high level player for us. He’s bigger than Greg and probably faster than Greg. And could help in the return game. He said, “we’re excited about our recruiting class but Kendall might be the best recruit we got.”

I commended him for signing 10 of the top 25 recruits in Wake history in this class and I asked how else we could help the program continue to move forward in recruiting and otherwise. Having our involvement makes a difference. When Miami "had it going" there was a connection between current and former players and you’d always see former players on the sidelines. The more consistent our presence is the better it is for our program. Five years ago we were facility poor and budget poor. We’re no longer facility poor, but we need to do things to build an endowment so that we’re not budget poor. Spread the word that Wake is a top-notched location and that Wake has something to do with our successes. We have to stop looking at ourselves as a program that only gets the recruits others didn’t want. Our top three recruits had tons of offers. We’re not happy with where we are. We don’t have an 80,000 seat stadium so our former players have to be there with their presence, but also financially, to keep us moving forward.

Ben Wooster asked what are we doing to increase the student body at games. We’re playing good football with good players and we’re winning. This is what we’re presenting to the student body. Now being a nationally-ranked school we get students from all over the country who perhaps didn’t grow up as Wake fans. All we can do is play good football.

Steve gave a facility update regarding the Sutton Sports Performance Center and noted that it contains new meeting rooms, new coaches offices, etc. Facilities help us compete with the big boys. He reiterated the importance of us showing up April 5-6 and especially for the Friday night career networking event. Invited formers players to come back and make connections with current players to help their transition into the real world. (Yours truly was one of two keynote speakers last year.) Spring game Saturday afternoon. Tour of the facility that Saturday morning. Really need all of us back for the event.
Click to expand...

I've gotta big time man crush on Claw.
 
MagicDeac said:
Call with former players yesterday at 11am. Tough to say how many were on the line but seemed like a lot more beeps than in past years.

Steve Vallos opened the call introducing Coach Clawson and Barry Faircloth and turned it over to Coach Clawson.

Clawson started by briefly highlighting last season’s successes saying how proud he was of the way the team finished the year winning three of the last four games after suffering 14 season-ending injuries. I chuckled when he talked about, “beating Duke at Duke in a very hard fought, extremely close football game.” Zing!

He mentioned winning the third straight bowl game and following that up with the highest rated recruiting class of his tenure here. Also noted signing three four-star recruits and how we’re gradually starting to win recruiting battles like we did with our two in-state wide receivers.

Mentioned the April 6 Spring Game and the football career night the night before. The more of us that come back the better and it’s something the staff is selling in recruiting. Noted that we have had as many as 180 former players back for that event. We want this to be a program where there’s a connection between the past and present.

He opened the floor for questions.

Someone asked about current injuries. Coach spoke about Justin Herron who will be back next year and 5 others that, although they won’t be available for spring practice, will be ready by August.

Riley Skinner asked about Sam, how he’s feeling, and the quarterback competition in the spring.
Sam is healthy and is full go in the spring. Jamie finished the year really strong. We have a good problem of having two good quarterbacks. Also really excited about Michael Kern who joined the team mid-year.

Riley followed up regarding whether Sam and Jamie run the same offense. Coach said they run the same offense but it was tricky last year because for the first half Jamie wasn’t healthy and for the second half Sam wasn’t. So we ran the quarterback more towards the very end of the season because we had to win to make a bowl. Not having two healthy quarterbacks restricted the play calling before that. He mentioned being careful of how many hits you want an RPO quarterback to take when you don’t have depth at the position. The last few weeks we had the ability to run Jamie and that helped us win.

A question was asked about whether Kendall Hinton was fitting in. Coach said Kendall was really really good last year when healthy and that he has a chance to be a very high level player for us. He’s bigger than Greg and probably faster than Greg. And could help in the return game. He said, “we’re excited about our recruiting class but Kendall might be the best recruit we got.”

I commended him for signing 10 of the top 25 recruits in Wake history in this class and I asked how else we could help the program continue to move forward in recruiting and otherwise. Having our involvement makes a difference. When Miami "had it going" there was a connection between current and former players and you’d always see former players on the sidelines. The more consistent our presence is the better it is for our program. Five years ago we were facility poor and budget poor. We’re no longer facility poor, but we need to do things to build an endowment so that we’re not budget poor. Spread the word that Wake is a top-notched location and that Wake has something to do with our successes. We have to stop looking at ourselves as a program that only gets the recruits others didn’t want. Our top three recruits had tons of offers. We’re not happy with where we are. We don’t have an 80,000 seat stadium so our former players have to be there with their presence, but also financially, to keep us moving forward.

Ben Wooster asked what are we doing to increase the student body at games. We’re playing good football with good players and we’re winning. This is what we’re presenting to the student body. Now being a nationally-ranked school we get students from all over the country who perhaps didn’t grow up as Wake fans. All we can do is play good football.

Steve gave a facility update regarding the Sutton Sports Performance Center and noted that it contains new meeting rooms, new coaches offices, etc. Facilities help us compete with the big boys. He reiterated the importance of us showing up April 5-6 and especially for the Friday night career networking event. Invited formers players to come back and make connections with current players to help their transition into the real world. (Yours truly was one of two keynote speakers last year.) Spring game Saturday afternoon. Tour of the facility that Saturday morning. Really need all of us back for the event.
Click to expand...

This should be in Wellman's list of responsbilities. He's shat the bed on making our little stadium a huge home field advantage. Should be filled with students, alumns, regional fans, local high school teams. It is mostly filled with alumns, a smaller number of regional fans than we should have, and oppontent's fans. Wellman has focused on the buffet line in the box seats.
 
jaybone said:
This should be in Wellman's list of responsbilities. He's shat the bed on making our little stadium a huge home field advantage. Should be filled with students, alumns, regional fans, local high school teams. It is mostly filled with alumns, a smaller number of regional fans than we should have, and oppontent's fans. Wellman has focused on the buffet line in the box seats.
Click to expand...

I don't know, I think we have pretty decent support for the size of the school and the challenges we face that Clawson noted. Could be better but I wouldn't put it super high on the list of Wellman's failings.

How often do you get down for football games, bone?
 
It’s tough to get people out to live sporting events except maybe for elite teams. Last year’s home schedule and performance was a tough set back. Hopefully the kickoff times and definitely performance on the field will be better for the home fans.
 
Clawson is the man and Wake football is going places.
 
skinnydeac said:
Clawson is the man and Wake football is going places.
Click to expand...

Yeah, just hope Clawson doesn't go other places. Wouldn't begrudge him if he does at some point, but hoping he just loves what Wake offers and is content as long as we'll have him.
 
It's pretty goddamn awesome that he loves sticking it to Duke.
 
CantStandYa said:
It's pretty goddamn awesome that he loves sticking it to Duke.
Click to expand...

He’s been like that since day one. He wouldn’t mention them by name in his opening presser. I think he just referred to them as a “school down the road”.
 
GoDeacsGo said:
I'm sure someone will send this to Duke and it will be all over the locker room the week before the game.
Click to expand...

If they need that extra motivation over the box score from last season, then Cut should retire.
 
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