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2019 Football — Position Battles

I’m excited to see the LB quartet of a healthy (God willing) Jeff Burley and Chase Monroe added to D.J. Taylor and Ryan Smenda. WF has not ever had this potential size,speed and depth inside


Over Strnad? He was the one consistent performer at LB throughout the year, due partly to injuries of course.
 
I'm excited about our D line. We may not be the biggest, but we have decent size, good strength and a lot of quickness.
Stiil relatively young so I think we'll see significant improvement thru the season.

Am going to try to have a story on the D-line next week.

Basham obviously starts. Manny Walker likely at the other end spot. DTs should be a rotation of the ODU transfer (Miles Fox), Kamara, Bergan and Tyler Williams. Rondell Bothroyd also is moving inside. McCollum will have a chance to come in and contribute, since he's enrolling early. Mike Allen should back up Boogie.

It'll be a young group, but plenty to build with.
 
Abbate, Arnoux, Curry, and Eric Berry are on line 1. They'd like a word with you.

Love ‘em all and at this juncture you have a point. I am clearly basing it on my opinion as to how the guys will continue to develop for I remember the 6’1-208 pound Stanley Arnoux as a recruit out of Florida who the name schools overlooked despite his 4.6 speed and tenacity as an every down guy.

I remember Aaron Curry when he was a 6’2-195 pound Safety-LB who was not named to the NC Shrine team but instead played in the NC East-West game and earned MVP honors. Nobody hyped Aaron Curry or Arnoux or Berry or Abbate like I did. I projected what I saw for each one of them. As for Eric Berry.. he had more ability than any of other 3. He was made to play MLB and it proves the razor thin line between making it and becoming a football asterisk.

Berry was my favorite of those 4 but alas other issues sidetracked him from any real contribution. Love Stanley Arnoux but Ryan Smenda is a 6’3-250 pound version at 19 years of age! We will all find out why Jimbo Fisher put the late full court press in his first go at A&M recruiting.Terrific puncher. State Champion wrestler. Great balance and instincts and a numbers guy. — 22 Tackles,3.5tfl,3pbu,1 fumble w/17 yard return in his first year of college.

Justin Strnad 6’3-235 can range across the middle in the lineup. All-ACC 1rst team candidate in 2019 w/ AA mentions
105 tackles, 1.5 sacks,8.5 TFL,5 PBU,5 hurries. Comparison : Notre Dame’s Drue Tranquill

Jeff Burley .. as with Chase,we hope for extended health for both guys. Burley was no. 1 LB big board for Mississippi State. An SEC styled ILB at 6’2.5 - 245 who can really run. Nobody more excited at his signing than Aaron Curry. Abundant physical gifts. WF faithful cross our fingers :)

Chase Monroe 6’2-235 to 240 - like Burley,a RS Soph. Chase is a numbers guy. Nose for the football and the #1 Rated LB in NC and #13 overall during his recruitment. Instincts with good speed and a knack for being in on the play. Strong tackler. A peer he likely targets as a competitor (Dax Hollifield at VT)

D.J. Taylor 6’1.5-240. Rising true Junior is a gifted athlete who was primarily a HS RB who ran for over 5,000 yards and 70 td’s in his career. He is a convert to LB and is learning quickly with 50 tackles,1.5 sacks,5.5 TFL,3 PBU,5 hurries in just his second year in college. The initial plan had him as RS behind Burley and Monroe.
 
Over Strnad? He was the one consistent performer at LB throughout the year, due partly to injuries of course.

No,I consider Strnad as more of a Rover/OLB type as opposed to a traditional Inside LB - although he can easily slide insider. Clearly the leader of the 2019 LB corps. Strnad is a player we will see in lots of different set ups next year. Great versatility.
 
D-line could be interesting. Toward the end of the season it seemed like Wake used more 3 man rush than usual and brought a safety into the box. If you can't go big, go fast.

Hemphill ran a 3-3-5 at Stony Brook to great success as D2 coordinator of the year. We may see more of that and it may make nailing the defensive starting lineups and playing time a bit more difficult as he may be more situational (like the NCSU game with Glenn lined up at DE upon occasion) with our schemes. Coach Clawson mentioned that our DE's and DT's have similar skill sets required so not difficult for them to interchange which is why Willy played at DE and Tyler Williams played DE and will be back at DT with Rondell as mentioned by Conor. Also agree with Conor's assessment of the D line and look forward to reading his article soon.

Expect we'll see some good rotation now at the LB's to save their legs and wear and tear to avoid the letdowns that we've had in the past in the back 7. Hopefully we'll have some help at CB so Bassey won't have to play 1000 snaps again this year. Not sure how interchangeable our corners and safeties are as Hardimon was listed all year on the Game Notes positions as a safety but was on the 2 deep at corner the last couple of games. Hopefully with Dicks and Keith having a redshirt year under their belts with some game experience, they will add solid depth with Byrd coming off of injury and continued improvement by Ja'Sir Taylor. Looking forward to the lunacy and joy of high expectations that always come out of spring and fall camp while we compete against each other.
 
Understood that based on the injuries this season, we probably were not able to send as many blitzes.

But I would love to see a more aggressive scheme next season. I seem to remember alot of Bassey blitzes in 2016 and 2017.
 
We have a nice mix of returning starters, guys forced to play due to injuries and newcomers. Depth basically everywhere.

Hard to curb enthusiasm. Could be a big year. One problem continues to be Clemson, unfortunately. Would like to see them go on probation. That would help.
 
Sage Surratt would disappear at times but he will be a starter next year.
 
Sage Surratt is a baller and is only going to get better.
 
Does anybody have a list of the freshmen that burned their red shirts? Did any of them not get into a game?
 
Don’t have any insight into who might start on the DL but the transition of Rondy Bothroyd was predictable. Bothroyd had been identified early as a kid who was still growing — when Geoff Collins at Temple was recruiting him,Bothroyd was a 6’2-240 pound TE,but staff at Temple saw a big kid in the making. Boston College followed suit after they determined the kid had an ample frame that had just begun to fill out..the prospect of a DT in the making underway. Sure enough Bothroyd blossomed as a Sr in high school (a WF example would be a 6’2-187 pound HS JR Safety out of Texas named Duke Ejiofor who grew into a 6’4-220 DE prospect as a Sr)

The Wake coaches eventually concurred with the scouting and got involved with the Connecticut Top 5 footballer and won him over. Bothroyd has quickly grown into a 6’4 to 6’5 down lineman who projects as a 300+ pound DT in the near future.
 
Newman has to start next year. He earned it. I don’t understand what the coaches were watching in practice he is clearly better than Hartman
 
Newman has to start next year. He earned it. I don’t understand what the coaches were watching in practice he is clearly better than Hartman

Newman was injured much of the first half of the season.
 
Newman has to start next year. He earned it. I don’t understand what the coaches were watching in practice he is clearly better than Hartman

Not so sure about that. Sam is a more advanced QB than Jamie at the same stage. Sam Hartman has not even begun to fight and he is going to follow right in behind the steps of his “brother”,Will Grier. We are truly blessed with these 2 Quarterbacks and they are going to engage in a spirited inner-competition to grind on each other to become better and better. As Dortch said of his workouts with Essang Bassey, “iron sharpens iron”.
 
Newman has to start next year. He earned it. I don’t understand what the coaches were watching in practice he is clearly better than Hartman

Reading the defense in the RPO is not easy. The two QBs may have been close in that ability in the summer.

Or the coaches may have been engaging in a little coachspeak misdirection about the abilities of the two.

Newman is clearly the better runner and better to withstand the rush.
 
If they start Hartman it won't be for long because if they run him he's going to get injured. In addition he likes to RPO his own number.
 
Does anybody have a list of the freshmen that burned their red shirts? Did any of them not get into a game?

Burned shirt:
- Hartman
- Sciba
- Smenda
- Greer
- Bergan

Played 4 or close to 4
- Dicks
- Bothroyd
- Woulard
- Keith

Played 1 or 2 I believe
- McKinney
- Edwards
- Jurgens
- Whiteheart

Not sure if played
- Perry
- Isaac
- Heggs
- Alston
- Francis (? Still in program)
- Gordon (grey shirt)

Left program
- Manning
- Brown
 
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