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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 .
I'd like our chances if we had Camp at QB, RB, and 3 WR spots.
 
The 2.3 million dollar man will earn his keep this year, with a 6-6 record and a loss against Toledo in the Toilet Bowl.
 
Ph, I feel like we've been around this a few times, but if you were the head coach of Wake Forest football what would you do to win games? I know you are not the coach, and you don't have to be to criticize, but I'd like to to hear a few notions from you on this topic. To be clear, I'm not being critical of you being critical, I just want to hear what your thoughts are.

Here are a few questions:

What do you think about Coach Grobe overall?
Do you think he should not be our coach?
If not then who do you think we should get to be our coach?
Do you agree with the decision to stop the redshirting?
How many wins do you think we should get out of this roster?
Do you agree with the switch to a more "option" based offense?

Once again, I know this is not your job, but I would like to hear your thoughts.

If you have said this before then I apologize.
 
Deacsfan27 said:
A.J. Marshall and who else?
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Lance Virgile got 4 stars from ESPN, 3-stars from Rivals/Scout. Bryan Andrews back in '02. You can go back to CJ Leake for someone close. The last couple of years we've got more 3-stars and fewer 2 stars. Last year we got most of our 2 star players at end when we taking some flyers on some longshots.
 
Not for his entire career, but he certainly started here
 
Deacsfan27 said:
Ph, I feel like we've been around this a few times, but if you were the head coach of Wake Forest football what would you do to win games? I know you are not the coach, and you don't have to be to criticize, but I'd like to to hear a few notions from you on this topic. To be clear, I'm not being critical of you being critical, I just want to hear what your thoughts are.

Here are a few questions:

What do you think about Coach Grobe overall?
Do you think he should not be our coach?
If not then who do you think we should get to be our coach?
Do you agree with the decision to stop the redshirting?
How many wins do you think we should get out of this roster?
Do you agree with the switch to a more "option" based offense?

Once again, I know this is not your job, but I would like to hear your thoughts.

If you have said this before then I apologize.
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Fan27, I'd like to take a stab at it. I think Grobe is a good coach, I wish he would have more success. As far as red-shirting, some guys need it to get healthier, stronger, faster, some do not. For those who don't, do they play a position of need. A year of starting is more important then a year as a special teamer. As far as wins, we don't know enough of this team and our opponents yet. 3 of our opponents have new HCs. A boxer can train for months, but he has to get in the ring with someone who is trying to knock his head off. The switch to an option offense seems to smell of desperation. What have the coaches learned of our players that the old offense wasn't going to work with them. They recruited them for the old O and have failed to develope them to succeed in it.
 
Yep. Disappointing we've gotten so, so little out of our few 4-star guys
 
Regarding the option, we loved it when Grobe was winning. He won with the option. I think it is positive that we are returning to what he does best.
 
I am surprised we haven't heard more about Tyree Harris. His offer list was really impressive.
 
Deacsfan27 said:
Ph, I feel like we've been around this a few times, but if you were the head coach of Wake Forest football what would you do to win games? I know you are not the coach, and you don't have to be to criticize, but I'd like to to hear a few notions from you on this topic. To be clear, I'm not being critical of you being critical, I just want to hear what your thoughts are.

Here are a few questions:

What do you think about Coach Grobe overall?
Do you think he should not be our coach?
If not then who do you think we should get to be our coach?
Do you agree with the decision to stop the redshirting?
How many wins do you think we should get out of this roster?
Do you agree with the switch to a more "option" based offense?

Once again, I know this is not your job, but I would like to hear your thoughts.

If you have said this before then I apologize.
Click to expand...

I know this is bait because we've been over this plenty of times and I post too damn much to have to repeat myself.

1. Grobe was a good coach who brought a great philosophy to Wake. Redshirt and win with experience and execution. Play a conservative ball control strategy to minimize turnovers and focus on defense. Wake isn't an easy place to win, but that is the way to do it. Grobe had early success with Caldwell's players who were stronger on offense by using Calhoun's style. Adding two of his greatest players as true freshmen in Barclay and Plack helped. He did a good job recruiting from the Seattle Bowl. Whether on purpose or just going with the best players possible, he went heavy on defense. By going heavy on defense, we had depth and could overcome attrition (Drumgoole, Causey). Having Sam Swank helped, of course. He got the perfect players for his system, albeit in a different era of recruiting and it worked out well.

(find a post I made last week about how the best recruiting period was before YouTube went on line and made it tougher to find sleeper players like Curry)

Grobe has had the same rise and fall Odom and Prosser had. Just like Odom got Duncan by being the school with the best weather and Prosser was lucky to have CP3 in his backyard, Grobe managed to get a good mix of underrated, lightly recruited players in the right point in time in the FRESH DEACS. Each coach had the perfect fit for his style and peaked. Odom and Grobe managed to get good players on paper but couldn't get the same success. Prosser's recruiting just fell off after big misses like OCC. All three couldn't get back to where they were without perfect recruits and failed to adapt to what they could get.

Grobe's philosophy is so conservative to the point of being risky. His safe play isn't the high percentage play. Things like settling for 40+ yard FGs, punting inside the opponent's 35, and not being aggressive in late game situations when a few 1st downs will win the game are conservative to a fault. He gets scared of a low percentage negative event like a turnover and baits himself into high percentage negative events like missed FGs that give up field position, 15 yard net punts, and his poor defenses allowing TD drives.

2. He deserves a chance to get back to where he was, but the last 4 years have worn out his welcome. I don't know how you can argue against those poor finishes. That's just not a sign of good coaching. If we can only beat the dregs in late Oct and November, we're not a competitive program. He'll finish out his contract or get an extension, but he should be gone if we can't tread water with 6 wins next year.

3. I don't know. That's a bullshit question AD plants like you ask critical fans like me in order to feel superior. I don't know the coaching landscape or who would be interested or what. I'm sure there are plenty of talented coaching minds out there who would love to get a shot at an ACC and we shouldn't be scared that they might leave because of what Mackovic did 30 years ago. Believe it or not, Wake has been a destination job for winning coaches across all sports.

4. We haven't seen it happen yet. I think the best players should play. If the best players aren't the more experienced players, that's a problem. I think what Grobe has been doing with redshirting is fine. It's not a strict policy. Everybody doesn't automatically redshirt. For a long stretch, the only players that played as true frosh were the best players on the team for four years. Guys like Barclay, Plack, Thompson, DeGeare, rightfully didn't redshirt.

I think he could have been looser with some redshirts for guys who probably could have contributed as true frosh like Abbate. We've also seen the downside of redshirting by missing a year due to unforeseen issues from Abbate, Givens, Boldin, and Brandon Ghee. If DeGeare had redshirted, it would have happened to him, too.

If Grobe just plays all the true frosh just to play them, I'll be disappointed, but not too surprised. He has four years left on his contract. No point in holding them out for a 5th year he may not coach them.

5. Honestly, I don't think we're all that talented and that's Grobe's fault. A decent Wake team should win at least 6-8 games a year given the weak schedules we play.

6. It won't really matter as long as Lobo is designing the offense and calling the plays. I don't think Tanner is a good fit for the option and he'll get killed. I think they need to pick something and do it well rather than rely on trickery with a new scheme every week. The reason Grobe's early offenses worked wasn't because they fooled people. They worked because they were very well executed by a disciplined and well-conditioned offense that could wear teams down throughout the game. We're not going to be the most talented team on the field every week, but we damn sure can be the smartest team, that works the hardest, is technically sound, and gives a 110% on every play. That team can win games. That high level of execution been missing for several years now and that's the biggest indictment of Grobe.
 
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Despite you thinking that I was "baiting" you or being an "AD plant criticizing the critical fans" I appreciate the answers.

I know you may find it hard to believe but I agree with nearly all of it, especially the part about our earlier teams this decade winning because we executed and were well disciplined. I also especially agree with the part of him being conservative to the point of being overly aggressive in terms of statistics (which I have posted about several times in the past year).

The place where we disagree is the idea that a "decent" Wake team should win 6-8 games every year with the schedules we play. I agree that winning 6 games in today's college football landscape is not that difficult, notably because we schedule an FCS team every year.

Keep in mind, however, that in the entire history of Wake Forest football (105 years), we have won 8 games or more 6 times (3 in the past 7 years). We have won 7 or more games 12 times in the 105 year history, and 6 or more 28 times.

6 is most certainly easier to attain than it was in the past when only 8-10 games were played, but I think expecting a "decent" Wake team to win 8 games a year is a little off-base as to where we are as a program.

Do I want us to be a program that can win 6-8 games a year every single year? Of course, who doesn't want Wake Forest to be that kind of program.

For a while it looked like Coach Grobe had us on that track and at some point we lost the plot (presumably where we got too conservative for our own good).

That is probably why you feel that if he can't do that this year then it may be time for him to move on. I don't disagree.
 
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The main thing I would add to Ph's post is one thing that we used to have, that we no longer do, is a defense that forces tons of turnovers. Hood's Ds had a knack for that, but it followed him out the door.

Grobe had two excellent coordinators initially. Through choosing to go with internal hires he has botched the process of replacing them, and there has been a significant "brain drain" amongst the entire staff
 
deacfan27, I'm curious what you thought I would post. We've both been posting here for years. Heck, we met at that Duke win in 2009. Do you think I'm critical of Wake coaches for shits and giggles? I hate losing. I hate seeing the seeds of losing even when we manage to win. What has happened the last four years isn't new. We just had the FRESH DEACS and Swank to mask it during the good years.

wsc, the turnovers part can definitely be filed under poor recruiting and lack of execution. Those defenses that forced turnovers were full of ball hawking athletes. They tackled strong and hard and went to strip the ball. They took good angles in pursuit and in coverage. Grobe got a lot of credit those years for "doing more with less". That wasn't the case. That defense was the best defense on the field most games and had the most talent in the 2-deep.
 
PhDeac said:
deacfan27, I'm curious what you thought I would post. We've both been posting here for years. Heck, we met at that Duke win in 2009. Do you think I'm critical of Wake coaches for shits and giggles? I hate losing. I hate seeing the seeds of losing even when we manage to win. What has happened the last four years isn't new. We just had the FRESH DEACS and Swank to mask it during the good years.

wsc, the turnovers part can definitely be filed under poor recruiting and lack of execution. Those defenses that forced turnovers were full of ball hawking athletes. They tackled strong and hard and went to strip the ball. They took good angles in pursuit and in coverage. Grobe got a lot of credit those years for "doing more with less". That wasn't the case. That defense was the best defense on the field most games and had the most talent in the 2-deep.
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Most of the time I understand why you are critical. Nobody likes to lose. I hate losing and I write about it for Blogger So Dear, so I relive the losing over and over again by publishing different articles on it throughout the week.

Sometimes I just like to hear what you think we should be doing instead of what we are doing because of how everything out of your mouth is critical. I guess it's easy to be critical when we have been as bad as we are at everything lately.

Basically I wanted to hear what you thought we needed to do to turn it around. I hear you (and a lot of people), rightfully so, being critical week in and week out but there are hardly ever responses as to what we can do to fix the problems before they occur. Hindsight is 20/20 in a lot of cases you know?

You thought I was trolling you but I really wasn't. I just wanted to hear some ideas from you that Wake could implement moving forward to be better than they are now. Whether that means recruiting differently, hiring different coaches, drastically changing everything, maybe all of that?

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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