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Dan's full interview with Clawson

I think the number of 18 and 19 year olds on the Team have something to do with those strength numbers. . .

Clawson probably factors that into his strength assessments.
 
"Even last year, until Brandon Terry caught a touchdown against Duke, there’s not one player who scored (an offensive touchdown) for us that had scored ever before."

I had no idea that this happened. Maybe my apathy towards football the past few years clouded recognition of this. Talk about the cupboard being bare.
 
Jim Caldwell took the job and said it was a weak football team. Jim Grobe took the job and said it was a weak football team and everyone praised him when guys didn't throw up on the field. It is what you hear from every new coach no matter what the school. As discussed above every strength coach has a different model and our pro guys all tested really well. This is a different style and younger team. Hard for me to believe Antonio Ford and Cory Helms are weak. It has been mentioned on the boards that the old guy was a power clean guy and the new guy a bench and squat guy. Same things we heard with Grobe as the Caldwell guy was bench and squat and Grobe guy power clean. Just coach talk in my book but also part of getting the team to buy in saying it in public.

Clawson has a model. It is to blow everything up and start over. He has gotten rid of quite a few players and I am sure more are to come. Dez Floyd's departure isn't being talked about but that is a 5th year senior who was playing. I worry about guys like Chubb who can graduate transfer and play immediately anywhere they want. However, after next year, essentially the whole team is all Clawson and that seems to be what he wants. There are two ways to do it, the BC way fitting in a few key transfers and the clean house way. Clawson has a plan and we'll see if it works but the attrition he has had makes it highly unlikely we are any better than we were last year. I think I have heard him say we will see in year 3 and I would agree with that. I would be shocked if we weren't the youngest team in the country next year.
 
J'ville Deac,

Great post. Every coach has their own/different strength training philosophies. WF played well under Grobe when WF had good players; they struggled when they had less talented players. I do not buy the claim that Ethan Reeve's training regime caused WF's poor play over Grobe's last few years. If you buy that, you then have to give credit to Reeve, when WF won by shutting down the opposition. When WF had elite players, WF's strength and conditioning program was good enough to allow those players to dominate other BCS programs.

Did not know about Floyd. You can never have too many d-lineman; so, I am surprised. Losing Chubb would be devastating.

Way early, but next year looks again to be a struggle for WF football. WF will be a little better on offense (which is saying very little), but will be weaker on defense.
 
Jim Caldwell took the job and said it was a weak football team. Jim Grobe took the job and said it was a weak football team and everyone praised him when guys didn't throw up on the field. It is what you hear from every new coach no matter what the school. As discussed above every strength coach has a different model and our pro guys all tested really well. This is a different style and younger team. Hard for me to believe Antonio Ford and Cory Helms are weak. It has been mentioned on the boards that the old guy was a power clean guy and the new guy a bench and squat guy. Same things we heard with Grobe as the Caldwell guy was bench and squat and Grobe guy power clean. Just coach talk in my book but also part of getting the team to buy in saying it in public.

http://www.ogboards.com/forums/showthread.php/23960-Cory-Helms-transferring-according-to-twitter

Too weak for Wake.
 
I won't pretend to know S&C theories. I do know that for all but 2 seasons under Grobe, we had a particularly difficult time finishing games and finishing seasons. Lack of strength and overall training probably had something to do with that.

Must be the strength coach. haha.

Coach Reeve never kept guys out of the weight room. This is the 2000s. If you can't find your way to the weight room on your own time and do some lifts/agility work that you need to do to be a division one player, I don't know how much a coach can change that. You can run or lift them to death. But if the attitude is poor, nothing can change that. Reeve had success with non division 1 talent who"Bought in" and became All-ACC, ALL ACC POY and National award winners. again, that staff recruited those guys, so that's partially on them regarding attitude.

I don't know how much you can see a kid's work ethic though. I don't think High school coaches are going to "sell out" a talented player by saying he had a bad work ethic. (Like we did with Josh Harris apparently :confused:) They want their guys to go D-1. You can pull grades. But it doesn't take work ethic to achieve great grades in high school. But at Wake, if you start missing on a few key guys, it hurts the program. We don't have room to miss like FSU or Clemson.

I think its really hard to put your finger on exactly what happened 2010-2013. Probably a combination of a lot of things. I think Clawson thought he'd have a little more success than he did last year. and maybe went on a bit of the defensive passively blaming previous coaching stuff for the guys he got.
 
Just remember that the real turning point in Grobe's OL performance was when he abandoned cut blocking. Once he did, our line suddenly appeared to be more weak than ever. I can't pass on what has been said about S&C, but the proof's in the pudding and it had been said before that our weight program was off the beaten path. I'm more inclined to believe what Clawson says because so far he seems to be someone who tells all and tells it like it is.
 
I agree with the cut blocking but would also say that from what I saw in Clawson's scheme nobody cut blocks. Maybe he will adjust.
 
Just remember that the real turning point in Grobe's OL performance was when he abandoned cut blocking. Once he did, our line suddenly appeared to be more weak than ever. I can't pass on what has been said about S&C, but the proof's in the pudding and it had been said before that our weight program was off the beaten path. I'm more inclined to believe what Clawson says because so far he seems to be someone who tells all and tells it like it is.

The first part is not really true. We were far from a cut blocking team in 2006 when we rushed for 150 yards/game, or 2007 when we rushed for 143 yards/game. Both those numbers were down from the Seattle Bowl team, but we were plenty effective offensively. Of course, we had 2-3 pros on the OL on those teams, so maybe scheme didn't matter as much as talent.
 
I don't know. I wouldn't say we were "far from a cut-blocking team" because with Skinner we had to pass block a heck of lot more. Don't remember when it became crystal clear we had abandoned cut blocking, but do remember most fans immediately noticing the less effective OL performance when we did.
 
The first part is not really true. We were far from a cut blocking team in 2006 when we rushed for 150 yards/game, or 2007 when we rushed for 143 yards/game. Both those numbers were down from the Seattle Bowl team, but we were plenty effective offensively. Of course, we had 2-3 pros on the OL on those teams, so maybe scheme didn't matter as much as talent.

In 2006 we were 78/119 and in 2007 we were 62/120. I struggle to call our offense those years "plenty effective"...we were just barely effective enough to get by with our great defense (2006 12/119, 2007 29/120). The truth is we've always had offensive issues, even in our best years. Whether that's scheme, Lobo, strength, recruiting, or a combination of them all is to be argued.
 
don't feel like digging up the twitter thread, but

 
In 2006 we were 78/119 and in 2007 we were 62/120. I struggle to call our offense those years "plenty effective"...we were just barely effective enough to get by with our great defense (2006 12/119, 2007 29/120). The truth is we've always had offensive issues, even in our best years. Whether that's scheme, Lobo, strength, recruiting, or a combination of them all is to be argued.

It's actually none of those that were the issue. Somehow it was [name redacted]s fault
 
In 2006 we were 78/119 and in 2007 we were 62/120. I struggle to call our offense those years "plenty effective"...we were just barely effective enough to get by with our great defense (2006 12/119, 2007 29/120). The truth is we've always had offensive issues, even in our best years. Whether that's scheme, Lobo, strength, recruiting, or a combination of them all is to be argued.

Eh- we were 39th in the country in rushing in 2006 (although we did drop to 64 in 2007). Either way, the cut blocking stopped around 2003-2004, so its not like we couldn't run the ball after that. Hell- Josh Adams almost ran for 1000 yards on 4.4 a carry in 2007.

And my last statement was probably a bit too glib- I absolutely think scheme mattered then and matters now. A Chad Morris-style spread would most likely have been fantastic for us in 2006, even if we would have needed to modify it a bit with respect to the zone read. And I am a huge fan of cut-blocking. But to state that we stopped cut blocking and then that caused our downfall fails to recognize that 4 of the 5 bowls Grobe made were made without substantial cut-blocking.
 
What's your source on when we stopped cut blocking, Sig? I recall it being much later than 2003-04, although that's just my memory. I feel pretty sure that Barclay benefitted his entire career from the cut blocking schemes.
 
Barclay benefitted from being Barclay.

Sig has legit sources.
 
No bowl in 2015. The schedule is too much. We trade Monroe and Ute State for the Hoosiers and ND.

I think we go bowling in '16. Third year with Claw's system and the schedule on the non-conf and conf sides are both favorable. 6-6 worst case with 8-4 best case.
 
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