Wake Forest Football 2018 Offseason Discussion
- Thread starter CharlotteDeac1
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One of the nice things about growing older is when you realize you don't need to always be an ass or try to win every argument with anonymous posters. Life is a lot more fun then
mebanedeac
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Great observation.
jaybone
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I do. Honestly when folks jump in on someone I have no context to their posting history. There are three exceptions: you and rjkarl because I have met you and had a beer one-on-one. So it is in theory your fault I recognize you as a poster for #beerbroing me.
The third is budatwake. And I have vowed to myself to be kinder. I post infrequently now though. Rarely get into any to and fro
Complacent Deac
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This. Well said.
Complacent Deac
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Excited to see what a noseguard body in Tyler Williams 6'1/300 can do at Defensive End. Elvis Dumervil was listed as a 5'11/250 LB hybrid DE, I suppose (I am sure he had some rush label). Freeney listed at 6'1/268, so the height is right on...weight is a different matter.
A few butter biscuits and this kid Williams is up to 305 at Defensive End - that is very intriguing. He must have Whitlock feet.
Generally speaking, D-Line should be fun to watch - on paper they look real good.
Can't wait for kickoff. Score early, get Tulane out of their comfort zone, create CHAOS!
Go Deacs!
Nikita is an interesting comparison..I actually see the powerhouse-built Dion Bergen as a Whitlock-type to give WF another relentless motor in the middle. He has acquitted himself well against Ryan and Phil. For a kid his age to match strength against two of the strongest players in the ACC is reason to be excited for his future development under Dave Coen’s expert eye.
Find some camp film of Tyler Williams —YouTube or Hudl,etc.,and you will see a kid who is startlingly quick out of his stance. He is a real athletic talent.
Tyler was Palm Beach County MVP and the only DL nominated for the Lou Groza Award since 1999.
Deaconblue
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If Sawvel knows any history of triple option football and defenses devised to stop it, he will have Tyler Williams eyeball to eyeball with the Tulane center much of the game. As noted above,Tyler has the build of a noseguard. Send him to Biscuitville this week then have him stuff the "not a fullback*" on runs between the center and guard.
Historically, the best way to defend against the triple option, veer and other derivatives from these is with either a 5 man line with two linebackers ("Oklahoma 50" defense) or 3-4 with large inside backers. The key element of both is a large, usually not tall nose tackle who soaks up two blockers and stops the run between center and either guard.
Triple option ground attack will still get yards but is much less effective if the first option is removed. Go find film of the last drive by Wake against the baby blue to secure the ACC championship in 1970. Everybody in the stadium knew what the plays would be. Well run by a very good option reading QB (Larry Russell), Wake's veer rolled over 90 yards for the winning TD in a few minutes.
*Tulane doesn't have fullbacks on their roster. Just guys who do that task.
Great article on Dortch's injury. I have not seen all the details before.
https://theathletic.com/489344/2018/08/29/greg-dortch-wake-forest-pylon-injury-return/?source=dailyemail
https://theathletic.com/489344/2018/08/29/greg-dortch-wake-forest-pylon-injury-return/?source=dailyemail
Wake is blessed to have the big-butt duo of Zeek Rodney and Sulaiman Kamara inside — 6’1-305 and 6’2-295. Both guys are classic NT types and both very athletic in their own right. Recruiting starting to pay off —Zeek was Top 10 in SC and Sulaiman was Virginia Top 10.
Lohengrin
Banned for anti-Marxism
Alas paywall.
Ugh, may sign up just to read this article. I was so confused about a) the nature of the injury; and b) why it was immediately ruled out he would be out for the next two plus months.
Deaconblue
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Both of them are built right for NT. However, if a four man line is just shifted so one of the DTs is over center, the option goes to the defense weakside on either QB keeper or pitch to outside RB. QB reads the DE or LB during the play. Block one, read the other. Two runners, one tackler.
PhDeac
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The Athletic is doing some quality work. I burned through my free articles in about 10 minutes and there were more I wanted to read. I’m seriously thinking about subscribing if they have quality coverage of Wake.
Behind the freak injury that put Wake Forest’s Greg Dortch out but not down
By Nicole Auerbach 3h ago 3
The scar is long and thin, and it stretches vertically along Greg Dortch’s stomach, visible only when he wants to share it. He’s shown his teammates — a lot of them saw it for the first time in the days after surgery — and his coaches. He’s shown fans of Wake Forest football, at least those who follow along on Twitter and have seen him with his jersey pulled up like a crop top.
That scar is the only physical relic Dortch has left from what everyone around him has termed a freak accident. Other than that, he feels fully healthy. He will play in the Demon Deacons’ season opener at Tulane on Thursday night, 10 months after the mishap that nearly cost him his life.
When Dortch first dived toward the goal line and landed on that bright orange pylon on Oct. 28, 2017, he thought he had just gotten the wind knocked out of him.
The Wake Forest redshirt freshman receiver had scored his second touchdown of the game against Louisville and reigning Heisman Trophy winner Lamar Jackson. He had a lot of family in the stands. His adrenaline was high. Wake Forest trainers kept Dortch out of the game for a stretch, checking to make sure he could run up and down the sideline without pain.
“I was just trying to hurry up and get back in,” Dortch told The Athletic. And he did, scoring two more touchdowns and finishing with 10 catches and 167 yards in the Demon Deacons’ 42-32 victory, yet another spectacular performance by one of the ACC’s breakout players.
Dortch went about his normal postgame routine. He showered, settled down from the game and took photos with fans, signing some autographs. His parents went about their normal postgame routine; they always take their son out to dinner afterward. They drove to a nearby restaurant and waited.
“Every time I would breathe, or like, would laugh, or like, move, I would just feel a sharp pain,” Dortch said. “It was probably the worst pain of my life.”
He told one of the team’s athletic trainers, who determined that Dortch needed tests, including a CT scan and X-rays. One particular word Dortch used — he said he felt “hollow” — alarmed the trainer.
“That was a word that he had never heard before to describe pain,” said Loretta Towns, Dortch’s mother. “That’s what actually made them take him to the hospital. He probably would have lost his life had he not gone to the hospital.”
Dortch missed five games last year after an injury caused by diving into the end zone pylon. (Brian Utesch / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
The pylon, Dortch came to find out, punctured his small intestine. Dortch needed surgery, and he needed it fast. An ambulance came to take him to the hospital, the vehicle jerking and thudding with each and every painful bump of the road.
Dortch’s parents beat him to the hospital. They’d gotten a call at the restaurant telling them to get there. They were confused. They’d just watched their son play the entire game. What could have gone so wrong so quickly?
“It was a freak accident,” Towns said. “How many athletes run into the pylon?”
Pylons are made from molded foam with a weight embedded at the bottom to keep them from blowing over. Dortch says the pylons used in games aren’t quite as soft as you’d think. But who expects a pylon to cause an injury?
“I just hit it the wrong way, and if I did that 10 times, it would probably only happen once,” he said.
Dortch arrived at the hospital around midnight and went in for surgery to repair the hole in his small intestine. When the 19-year-old came to, the first thing he asked was: Can I play?
The answer was no.
“I immediately broke down,” he said. “I cried in front of my parents and my coach, because I wanted to play. I had just scored four touchdowns. I felt like I had arrived. To be told that you can’t play for the rest of the season after how much hard work I put in, it just kind of crushed me.”
Wake Forest head coach Dave Clawson visited Dortch the next day, after a restless night for everyone involved.
“You don’t sleep, you’re just terrified, and it’s the old saying: The watched phone never rings,” Clawson said. “You just stare at your phone hoping and praying that somebody’s going to call you and say, ‘Everything’s OK.’ But then also when you get that phone call, you’re scared to death that they’re going to say, ‘Things aren’t OK.’
“Until you hear those words, you don’t even think about the football, the yards, the next game, because a young man’s life is, No. 1, in the balance, or, No. 2, can be forever altered because of something that occurred while they were playing a sport while you were coaching them. … Whenever something like that happens, you just throw the football out the window.”
At the hospital, Dortch was connected to tubes and taking medication to help alleviate the pain. For two days, he wasn’t able to eat or drink.
“Anything that touched my stomach was getting thrown up,” Dortch said.
He couldn’t walk for the first couple of days, either. He needed someone to help him to sit up.
“What the doctors said, and what the trainer said, too, was that that type of injury is so incredibly painful, that his pain tolerance had to be through the roof to be able to do what he did with that injury,” Clawson said.
Clawson was grateful and relieved that Dortch was OK — but he wasn’t sure what to say to a player like that, someone who’d loved football and carried one around the house even as a toddler. Dortch had never been injured or really been away from practice, film sessions and his teammates for a significant period. Clawson worried about his spirit.
“You’re not going to cheer him up,” Clawson said. “It’s more one of those things that, ‘Hey, we’re here for you, we care about you,’ and, ‘Greg, the next two months are going to be really, really hard. It’s going to be hard not to be out there, it’s going to be hard not to be able to play, and you know, you’ve got to use this as an opportunity to grow. You learn about the game, you show you care about your teammates, you support the guys that are in your position.’ ”
Dortch and his parents — who refused to go to a hotel, opting to sleep in their son’s hospital room — stayed in the hospital for five days. Dortch was devastated, talking often about how he felt like he was letting down his teammates. Towns reminded him that he could have lost his life, that he was fortunate he didn’t simply go back to his dorm room that night.
Everything was a struggle those first few days. He could barely eat anything for about a week. Dortch eventually had to force himself to stand up and walk around, alongside his mom, to avoid getting a blood clot in his small intestine.
By the time he was discharged nearly a week later, he was feeling slightly better. He visited with his teammates almost immediately after returning to campus; they were the first people he wanted to see.
“I think his upbringing has helped him a lot to understand that sometimes the man upstairs will bring you back down to reality,” Towns said. “He took this time to understand that this was his time to just reflect on what he has accomplished so far and just take it all in because he was on a roll.”
Despite missing the Demon Deacons’ final four regular-season games and the Belk Bowl, Dortch led Wake Forest with 722 receiving yards and nine touchdown receptions — to go along with 559 yards in kickoff and punt returns. He was named second-team All-ACC and the runner-up to Boston College’s AJ Dillon as ACC Rookie of the Year.
Dortch spent the final two months of the season trying his best to stay connected to his teammates, something his coaches tried to prioritize for him, too. They encouraged him to talk to and advise the younger receivers. They watched him grow.
“You just tell him, ‘Hey, this was bad, but don’t let something else bad come from this,’” Clawson said. “’Don’t let your academics slip. Stay involved in football. People are going to watch how you handle this, and if you handle it in a certain way, you’re going to come back with even a bigger voice on our football team.’ And, he did just that. He’s way more vocal in our receiver room now, and he will grab younger guys. He never did that stuff before.”
Before his injury, Dortch caught 53 passes for 722 yards in eight games as a redshirt freshman. (Joshua S. Kelly / USA TODAY Sports)
From a physical standpoint, the only thing that Dortch needed to heal was time. Which meant that he had to wait, impatiently, for days and weeks and months to pass.
“It wasn’t like, oh, I have to do 50 sit-ups to make sure I’m fine,” Dortch said.
After a few weeks, he could do basic ab work to test his level of soreness. Most things left him sore.
Dortch was cleared to practice in time for spring ball, which started in late February. He said that spring “was perfect, and it went every way I wanted it to go.” Summer went well, too, as has the preseason. Dortch has worked to build chemistry with new starting quarterback Sam Hartman and feel as comfortable in his routes as he did a season ago. He feels 100 percent healthy.
“Greg is one of those guys that when he’s in a good mood and he’s smiling, he can light up the room,” Clawson said. “When he was back out there practicing again, you could see there was just joy.
“He looks really, really good. He has that ability to make you miss in tight space, and now you’re taking a kid who does that naturally, and now he’s lifting again and getting stronger and changing direction. We’re hopeful he’s going to have a really good year.”
The coaches limited Dortch some in live periods throughout fall camp, partly to protect him and partly because he’s a proven player for them already. But Clawson said Dortch will return to game action Thursday.
“I don’t want to jinx myself and say that I’m going to top last year’s performance,” Dortch said. “But I’m excited to be back. I’m just going to go out and play the way I play and let everything come to me. I will let God take care of everything else.”
(Top photo by Brian Utesch / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Nicole Auerbach covers national college football for The Athletic. Previously, she was a national college football and basketball writer for USA Today for nearly six years. Follow Nicole on Twitter @NicoleAuerbach.
Deaconblue
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This is my photo of Greg hitting the pylon. I remember that he hesitated to get on his feet after the TD and I thought that he just had the wind knocked out of him. I had no idea that he was hurt so badly. It's astounding that he kept playing and scored two more TDs. It will be a special treat to see him back in action Thursday night.
A composite of some photos of Greg from last season.
Looks like just after the pic his belly hit the weight at the bottom of the pylon and the damage was done. Strange way to get hurt in football. Glad he survived.
This is my photo of Greg hitting the pylon. I remember that he hesitated to get on his feet after the TD and I thought that he just had the wind knocked out of him. I had no idea that he was hurt so badly. It's astounding that he kept playing and scored two more TDs. It will be a special treat to see him back in action Thursday night.
A composite of some photos of Greg from last season.
Awesome pics.
Here's the one from the article
CharlotteDeac1
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They have decent coverage of Wake, but nothing like you’ll get from Wake-specific sites. They have fantastic overall ACC coverage though so I think it’s worth it.