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Does Wake Forest make a bowl game in 2013-2014?

Does Wake go bowling this year

  • Total voters
    284
  • Poll closed .
There's no doubt we were best at forcing turnovers with the Fresh Deacs on the roster. We were still good at it the first year post-Hood when we still had Phonz and Curry on the roster.

Then it all fell apart
 
I didn't post anything here and I haven't posted before. It's easy to criticize the critics with the "hindsight" talk. These are things I've been saying for years that you and other have been shouting down.

And this is where I mention my posts after the 2009 Maryland 2nd half that was the start of this slide.
 
Weird to quote 6-8 wins as the bar of decency and then say Grobe had success early on with Caldwell's players. Won 3, 3, 3, 1 and 3 ACC games and squeaked into one crappy bowl in his first 5 years, never finishing better than 7th in the ACC and only once finishing the regular season over .500.

It could very easily be argued that those years were what it took for a good coach to find a way to get enough developed talent on the field to begin to compete in the ACC via redshirting and smart recruiting. Then 2006 happens when Riley falls in his lap. We put up 3 straight years of .500 or better ACC play, go to 3 straight bowls along with an ACC championship.

A couple down years after that run would be, I think, understandable. That's exactly what happens as he wins 4 ACC games in the next 2 years. Year 3 we're back to a winning ACC record and back to a bowl game with a 2nd place finish in the Atlantic. I think most Wake fans expected a junior Tanner with Givens and Camp to put us back into ACC contention, but it was like the opposite of the fresh deacs. Givens bails early, Camp gets hurt, we struggle with key injuries to our big guys and some locker room issues and by the end of the season Tanner's running for his life when we started out like we might be good after beating UNC and getting to 3-1 (despite the FSU debacle).

I like reading explanations like Ph's to get a sense of how people who know the history of Wake football or who the realities of recruiting at Wake Forest can say much more than last year sucked but before that we were pretty much on track before that. To call for Grobe's firing seems ridiculous to me, but maybe there's a coach out there who can come and get 4* kids to elevate Wake football to the point where 7 wins is average. I certainly like the idea that we aren't consigned to have to get more out of less and hope the pieces fall into place after a few years of building to challenge for an ACC title. And I don't buy the same argument for basketball. But football... I just don't see how firing Grobe and hiring someone to chase big recruits is going to make Wake better. I think it's far more likely the program collapses.

I do find the posts about "this staff will never win" pretty amusing. This staff has 5 bowl appearances and an ACC title. The entire history of Wake Forest football before them has 4 bowl appearances. And two of those were in the 1940's.
 
"I just don't see how firing Grobe and hiring someone to chase big recruits is going to make Wake better. I think it's far more likely the program collapses."

Who said that? The recruiting landscape is different than it was 10 years ago, but there are still good 2* and 3* players. We need a coach to bring them in and develop them. Grobe has provided a nice blueprint for winning at Wake. James Franklin looks to be putting together a nice blueprint at Vandy that Josh Gattis is learning from. It's not about chasing big recruits.
 
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It is a lot easier to make bowl games than it was in the past. Hell, we almost made one last year at 5-7.

And it also is a lot easier to win at Wake now than it has been historically as well
 
wsc8521s said:
It is a lot easier to make bowl games than it was in the past. Hell, we almost made one last year at 5-7.

And it also is a lot easier to win at Wake now than it has been historically as well
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qft
 
Thanks, wsc. I forgot to address this:

"Weird to quote 6-8 wins as the bar of decency and then say Grobe had success early on with Caldwell's players. Won 3, 3, 3, 1 and 3 ACC games and squeaked into one crappy bowl in his first 5 years, never finishing better than 7th in the ACC and only once finishing the regular season over .500."

Grobe went 6-5 and 7-5 his first two seasons. 2001 and 2002 were dominated by Caldwell's players. In 2003, only the freshmen from Caldwell's last team were still around. The starting QB was Cory Randolph, a Grobe recruit. The starting RB was Barclay, a Grobe recruit. The top WR was Jason Anderson, a Caldwell recruit, who redshirted Caldwell's last year. Other WRs like Chris Davis, Idlette, and Morton were Grobe recruits. The defensive leaders were a mix.

It's not weird to say 6-8 wins is the bar of decency then say Grobe had success early on by winning 6 and 7 games in his first two years led by Caldwell's players.
 
wsc8521s said:
It is a lot easier to make bowl games than it was in the past. Hell, we almost made one last year at 5-7.

And it also is a lot easier to win at Wake now than it has been historically as well
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what's your reasoning for this?
 
Reductions in the amount of scholarships allowed for football across the NCAA, for a start.

Every team being on TV as opposed to a select few would also have to be high on the list
 
i see. we also now have competitive facilities.
 
That doesn't hurt.

I also can't imagine we had the ability to pay our football coach the equivalent of $2M+ annually in the past
 
Expansion means we don't have to win 7 or 8 games to have a chance at the ACC Championship. It also means we don't have to play all the top teams in the conference every year. Going forward, we get Cuse instead of a possibly a game against VT, GT, Miami, UNC, or UVa. We have gotten Duke every year which gives us a leg up on our division rivals who do have to play one of VT, GT, Miami, UNC, or UVa every year.

There are more FBS level teams, meaning more cupcakes. I wouldn't be surprised if we got Georgia State or ODU on the schedule in the next 10 years. The 12th game means what used to be a 5-6 season is now 5 FBS wins + one FCS win to go to a bowl.
 
Does suck Louisville got placed in our division though. Was hoping they'd swap them for UVa or GT, but there was no obvious reason to do that.

Def think we'll be in the harder division moving forward
 
W - PRESBYTERIAN
W - at Boston College*
L - LOUISIANA MONROE
W - at Army
L - at Clemson*
L - NC STATE*
OPEN
W - MARYLAND*
L - at Miami*
L - at Syracuse*
L - FLORIDA STATE*
OPEN
W - DUKE*
L - at Vanderbilt

5-7 (3-5) (AGAIN)

I think @Army and @BC could be losses as well depending on how good our defense is to start the season.
 
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PhDeac said:
Yeah. "Does Wake Forest make a bowl game?" and "Does Wake Forest have a good team?" are two different questions.
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Which raises the question: If we make a bowl game, does the team get the credit for its performance? the coaches for doing an outstanding job? or the AD for scheduling?
 
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We are looking at the football team without really knowing what kind of teams they will butt heads with every week. I'm not sure that the '06 team could beat last years FSU team. A batter can only hit the pitches that are thrown to him. Last year, I thought the 'holes were more talented, but they couldn't stop Tanners last drive and screwed up their own last drive. We should have smacked Maryland but didn't. We don't know who the starting OL will be vs Presbo. If they play great, anyone of us could come out of the stands and run behind them. The last running QB we had was Skylar Jones, and if we run Tanner, he will be killed. Then what? I do not think this staff is committed to running the option, they're more likely to stick with what ever works. It's what they did with Skinner.
 
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Demonwolverine said:
Which raises the question: If we make a bowl game, does the team get the credit for its performance? the coaches for doing an outstanding job? or the AD for scheduling?
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When it comes to the offense, Lobo is like god. When things go right (prayers are answered) he gets the credit, especially from his disciple Grobe. When things go wrong (why, god, why?), the blame obviously rests elsewhere.
 
And in this case, both of us don't believe in god.
 
Deacsfan27 said:
I do disagree with you about Swank and the Fresh Deacs "masking the losing seeds". Did we play over our heads during those years? Hell yes we did, but I still enjoyed them nonetheless. I enjoyed winning and didn't really worry about "what could have been", and just appreciated watching those guys play week in and week out.
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What do you disagree with? Your post suggest you ignored the seeds, not that you think they weren't there.
 
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