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Wake Forest football 2020 outlook

I expect six or seven wins. We will not be ranked before or at any point in the season. A loss to App won't shock me. I also won't be surprised if Newman isn't back. Need big upgrades on D and special teams and a little imagination on the offense to take another step forward.
 
I don't know if the ship has already sailed with Delaney but as I recall he spent his first year or two at Wake as a DB. I wonder if he would be interested in moving to safety. He is a tough guy and does a nice job on special team tackling. We need some people at the back other than Nassir that can hit.

Delaney is gone. He’s done with football. It really sucks. If not on defense or offense, I’d say he would be our best player on special teams. He was a guy that I thought was a cog on our special teams, and I thought he played well at running back when he came in. He definitely wasn’t a waste of a scholarship. I thank him for what he’s done to contribute, and wish him the best.
 
I expect six or seven wins. We will not be ranked before or at any point in the season. A loss to App won't shock me. I also won't be surprised if Newman isn't back. Need big upgrades on D and special teams and a little imagination on the offense to take another step forward.

Ditto. Thanks for saving me the effort. :)
 
Position outlooks:

QB - Slightly Improved - Somewhat contingent on OL play, but no reason to think Newman/Hartman won't continue their positive development
RB - Steady - Losing Carney hurts, but most think Walker will be the better RB. Will CBS transfer? Would really hurt depth. Delaney gone too.
WR - Steady - Greene should be as good or better than Washington (hopefully more consistent/less injury prone). Need a slot to step up to come close to Hinton's production.
TE - Steady - Losing Freudanthal will hurt some, mostly from a leadership standpoint, but Chapman made some nice plays this year, and hopefully a young TE will step up.
OL - Slightly/Significantly Worse - Losing 3 senior starters, including both tackles, will hurt. Mike Edwards medical DQ hurts as well. At least our guys stepping in have a decent amount of experience.

DL - Significantly Improved - Entire two deep back, other than Walker. Lots of young talent to develop. Boogie is a star.
LB - Steady - Losing Strnad will hurt bigly, but get DJ Taylor back and a lot of young talent with hopefully more speed.
S - Steady/Slightly Improved - Greer will be all conference, if healthy. Need someone to step up in the other slot.
CB - Significantly Worse - Losing two senior starters with no proven depth is not good.

Kicking - Steady - Dom was fine this year, but not as great as years past. Sciba is GOAT.
Returns/Coverage - Can't be any worse, right?

I agree with this. Here’s the few things I’ll add:

At tight end, we have a bunch of young guys (too many). Odds are one of them are going to turn out great. Trey Boll was a big time recruit. I’d guess he ends up redshirting, but maybe not. Blake Whiteheart is a big man. He’s not the prototypical Wake Forest tight end because of his size, but neither is Chapman. He’d be my first guess at backing up Brandon after being on the team a full two years now.

I think we have some young studs at offensive line that people don’t know about. Maybe this incoming class didn’t have as good of a rating as classes in the past with Clawson, but we have a bunch of really solid offensive lineman that are fairly underrated. They have great size, and are physical. Guys you can expect to step up at the two tackle positions are Michael Jurgens, CJ Elmonus (I think he could be a beast in the NFL if he progresses well), Jevionte Nash (experiences player), and Spencer Clapp. I think if I had to guess that would be the ranked top 4 but I don’t get to watch practice like the coaches and media do.

The good thing about Justin being down, is it gave a lot of guys some valuable playing experience. Chase Jones and Ja’cquez benefited greatly from it.
 
Schedule and predictions for next season:

at Old Dominion Monarchs - Win
Appalachian State Mountaineers - Toss up
Villanova Wildcats - Win
vs Notre Dame Fighting Irish - Definite loss
at Duke Blue Devils - Toss up
at Florida State Seminoles - Definite loss
at Louisville Cardinals - Definite loss
at NC State Wolfpack - Toss up
Boston College Eagles - Toss up
Clemson Tigers - Definite loss
Miami (FL) Hurricanes - Toss up
Syracuse Orange - Toss up

If Wake can win 4 of the toss ups and make a bowl game, then that will be considered a successful season.
 
Schedule and predictions for next season:

at Old Dominion Monarchs - Win
Appalachian State Mountaineers - Toss up
Villanova Wildcats - Win
vs Notre Dame Fighting Irish - Definite loss
at Duke Blue Devils - Toss up
at Florida State Seminoles - Definite loss
at Louisville Cardinals - Definite loss
at NC State Wolfpack - Toss up
Boston College Eagles - Toss up
Clemson Tigers - Definite loss
Miami (FL) Hurricanes - Toss up
Syracuse Orange - Toss up

If Wake can win 4 of the toss ups and make a bowl game, then that will be considered a successful season.

In your eyes
 
No chance are we a toss up against App next year. Gtfo.
 
No chance are we a toss up against App next year. Gtfo.

Wake had to block a late game field goal in 2017 to beat App, App was ranked in the top 25 most of the season and App has always been a tough opponent against Wake. It’s definitely a toss up.
 
In order to make significant progress, or perhaps just to hold our own, we must improve our over-all team speed but especially at the skill positions. Also, we must develop more talent at LB and DB.
 
Schedule and predictions for next season:

at Old Dominion Monarchs - Win
Appalachian State Mountaineers - Toss up
Villanova Wildcats - Win
vs Notre Dame Fighting Irish - Definite loss
at Duke Blue Devils - Toss up
at Florida State Seminoles - Definite loss
at Louisville Cardinals - Definite loss
at NC State Wolfpack - Toss up
Boston College Eagles - Toss up
Clemson Tigers - Definite loss
Miami (FL) Hurricanes - Toss up
Syracuse Orange - Toss up

If Wake can win 4 of the toss ups and make a bowl game, then that will be considered a successful season.

Agree with most of this, but Florida State and Louisville are definitely not a definite loss. I’m not even sure Norte Dame is. If we come healthy and ready to play, we can win. Not likely, but possible. The only not possible next year is Clemson.
 
In order to make significant progress, or perhaps just to hold our own, we must improve our over-all team speed but especially at the skill positions. Also, we must develop more talent at LB and DB.

There are promising freshmen at LB. Also lots of injuries there. DB is much more uncertain.
 
There are promising freshmen at LB. Also lots of injuries there. DB is much more uncertain.

That's good to know. It's hard to keep up with redshirts, at least for me. We need size, strength and a bit of fury at LB.

BTW, I really liked what I saw of Taylor before he was injured.
 
Notre Dame is going to be better next year than this year. The Wake-Notre Dame game will not be close. Our best shot to beat Notre Dame was in 2018 and we saw how that turned out.
 
Schedule and predictions for next season:

at Old Dominion Monarchs - Win
Appalachian State Mountaineers - Toss up
Villanova Wildcats - Win
vs Notre Dame Fighting Irish - Definite loss
at Duke Blue Devils - Toss up
at Florida State Seminoles - Definite loss
at Louisville Cardinals - Definite loss
at NC State Wolfpack - Toss up
Boston College Eagles - Toss up
Clemson Tigers - Definite loss
Miami (FL) Hurricanes - Toss up
Syracuse Orange - Toss up

If Wake can win 4 of the toss ups and make a bowl game, then that will be considered a successful season.

Is it really a set of predictions if you don’t predict half the games? Hahaha
 
Our two critical areas to watch for development are CB and OL. Unfortunately OL is probably the position grouping where we have had the most misses in recruiting so this could be a real problem, especially in depth. CB is an area where Bassey and Henderson did a good job and I just don't see anybody of their caliber on the roster to replace them at their level of play. We can somewhat mask the weak CB positions by developing a good pass rush with what be our best unit defensively, the DL, I really like what we return there. Unfortunately there is no hiding a bad OL so we need several guys to step up big time or it won't matter who the QB is.
 
Notre Dame is going to be better next year than this year. The Wake-Notre Dame game will not be close. Our best shot to beat Notre Dame was in 2018 and we saw how that turned out.

Please explain. Between the current depth chart, and 3 other former starters who are injured, they graduate 15 starters. That doesn't account for any possible early entrants. Among the losses: two best WRs, RB, top 3 DEs, top 2 OTs, entire secondary. I was surprised Book elected to come back with all the losses, but I also don't think he received a very high draft grade.
 
Position outlooks:

QB - Slightly Improved - Somewhat contingent on OL play, but no reason to think Newman/Hartman won't continue their positive development
RB - Steady - Losing Carney hurts, but most think Walker will be the better RB. Will CBS transfer? Would really hurt depth. Delaney gone too.
WR - Steady - Greene should be as good or better than Washington (hopefully more consistent/less injury prone). Need a slot to step up to come close to Hinton's production.
TE - Steady - Losing Freudanthal will hurt some, mostly from a leadership standpoint, but Chapman made some nice plays this year, and hopefully a young TE will step up.
OL - Slightly/Significantly Worse - Losing 3 senior starters, including both tackles, will hurt. Mike Edwards medical DQ hurts as well. At least our guys stepping in have a decent amount of experience.

DL - Significantly Improved - Entire two deep back, other than Walker. Lots of young talent to develop. Boogie is a star.
LB - Steady - Losing Strnad will hurt bigly, but get DJ Taylor back and a lot of young talent with hopefully more speed.
S - Steady/Slightly Improved - Greer will be all conference, if healthy. Need someone to step up in the other slot.
CB - Significantly Worse - Losing two senior starters with no proven depth is not good.

Kicking - Steady - Dom was fine this year, but not as great as years past. Sciba is GOAT.
Returns/Coverage - Can't be any worse, right?

I am far more optimistic. I also think we will get AP votes if Jamie returns. I think we will be better at DL, LB (due to speed upgrades), RB and QB. CB is really the only glaring downgrade from my perspective.
1) Walker will be an upgrade over Cade. Perceived or reality, but he is a threat that needs to be accounted for, whereas Cade was far less dynamic
2) Losing Hinton hurts, but Sage + Greene will be a top 5-10 outside WR combo. Groulx will become a technician in the slot - he'll find the soft spots and exploit them
3) DL is going to be nasty and will force a lot of quick throws
4) LBs will be as good or better, partially because of the DL, but mostly because speed kills and we'll have a lot of it
5) We have a track record of grooming beef on the OL
6) Chapman is more than serviceable at TE
 
I don't think our current offensive scheme is designed to go with both Newman and Hartman interchangeably . The rpo as we play it requires a qb that is a threat to run consistently. Our line, by design, gets very little push off the los. The system needs and large qb like Newman who can keep the lbs honest. Hartman just isn't that type of player and would probably get hurt if he carried the ball 10 times in a game. All that said, I really like Hartman and think he is the better passer. Clawson would need to modify the offense a bit to showcase that.
 
A few wrinkles from the base RPO would be nice. For instance, jet sweep or orbit by slot receiver from the empty backfield set. Give the QB another option besides QB draw or pass. Would really have liked Wake to run that with Hinton.
 
Schedule and predictions for next season:

at Old Dominion Monarchs - Win
Appalachian State Mountaineers - Toss up
Villanova Wildcats - Win
vs Notre Dame Fighting Irish - Definite loss
at Duke Blue Devils - Toss up
at Florida State Seminoles - Definite loss
at Louisville Cardinals - Definite loss
at NC State Wolfpack - Toss up
Boston College Eagles - Toss up
Clemson Tigers - Definite loss
Miami (FL) Hurricanes - Toss up
Syracuse Orange - Toss up

If Wake can win 4 of the toss ups and make a bowl game, then that will be considered a successful season.

Don’t really see Duke and State being toss ups. State won’t be much improved from this year and playing at Duke is not tough. BC losing Brown, Dillon, and Adazzio so don’t see that being a toss up at home. I would expect 7 regular season wins, but wouldn’t be suprised if we got 8+ due to emergence of players like Greene, Walker lll, Greer, etc. did this year.
 
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