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Next year’s football team

deacdixieboy said:
Regarding this turnover convo, I will note that I think our focus on stripping the ball hurts our tackling immensely. Go back and watch some of the major missed tackles in the Clemson and UNC games and it was because our players were focusing on stripping the ball and not getting the runner down.
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Traveon Redd definitely led the team in attempted strips while not actually tackling the ball carrier.
 
IAppreciateIt said:
clawson did mention greer as a guy who coming back for their 5th year, but of course things can change especially as he gets more information.

i'm not sure any of us on the board have any real insight into his draft / nfl prospects.
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Pilchard said:
Greer has legit NFL speed and skill, but players also get evaluated on their durability. Greer has played in 8 games (he apparently played a few snaps against Pitt, but did not record a stat) over WF's last 23 games. Greer has talent, but not the kind of talent that NFL teams will give him pass for missing so many games.
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deacon14 said:
Greer to the draft is official, he just tweeted it. I think he has the talent to make it on an NFL roster, but he's certainly going to have to prove it over the next few months with how many games he has missed with injury.
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He has talent, but could not stay on the field. I'm not sure how much this hurts us next season, tbh. The biggest improvements need to come in the rushing defense.
 
PaddyWF said:
Defense

Become a mid-table rushing defense. This season we were 12th in YPG and YPC rushing allowed, giving up 195/game and a 4.9 average. Only Duke and Virginia were worse. We have to improve this next season to make it tougher on opposing offenses, as our pass defense was quite good overall. This should be Lambert's No.1 focus.

Tackling. I don't think these stats are available, but there were so many critical missed tackles this season. I can remember several in particular from Clemson and North Carolina that could have changed the game. We have to be a better tackling team in '22 both in wrapping up and being in position to make the first tackle.
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Regarding defense I have absolutely zero doubt we will be both a much better team against the run and a much more sound tackling team. Lambert will make sure of that. Though I do have a few questions about his scheme. Went back and watched the Music City Bowl to pay attention to the scheme and Lambert really likes to stay in his 4-3 base and I mean really likes it. Now having 3 LBs on the field will help against the run and with tackling and with Lambert's coaching the run D and tackling should doubly improve. However, even against Tennessee when they were using 4 WR with stacks outside the numbers he still stayed in base 4-3 with the Sam backer in coverage nearly on the sideline. That is not exactly ideal and is potentially exploitable especially with our lack of speed at the LB position. Tennessee obviously didn't have too much trouble scoring although I will grant that a good bit of that was pace of play and Purdue not getting lined up rather than purely scheme. Tennessee even burned Bama a few times on pace of play so that's not an easy task. The ACC is a much more open offense conference than the Big 10 so I wonder how willing he is to adapt his scheme to the opponent and offenses we are facing and/or whether he would use rover sized players(200-210 lbs) at the Sam instead of LB sized players(220-230 lbs).
 
deacdixieboy said:
Regarding this turnover convo, I will note that I think our focus on stripping the ball hurts our tackling immensely. Go back and watch some of the major missed tackles in the Clemson and UNC games and it was because our players were focusing on stripping the ball and not getting the runner down.
Click to expand...

WRS said:
Traveon Redd definitely led the team in attempted strips while not actually tackling the ball carrier.
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Hard to know, but it seemed to me like this was more of a problem when guys already got a first down, and the defender was trying to make something out of nothing. This ended up giving guys a lot more yards-after-contact than was necessary, even if was already a "bad" defensive play.
 
BBDeac said:
Regarding defense I have absolutely zero doubt we will be both a much better team against the run and a much more sound tackling team. Lambert will make sure of that. Though I do have a few questions about his scheme. Went back and watched the Music City Bowl to pay attention to the scheme and Lambert really likes to stay in his 4-3 base and I mean really likes it. Now having 3 LBs on the field will help against the run and with tackling and with Lambert's coaching the run D and tackling should doubly improve. However, even against Tennessee when they were using 4 WR with stacks outside the numbers he still stayed in base 4-3 with the Sam backer in coverage nearly on the sideline. That is not exactly ideal and is potentially exploitable especially with our lack of speed at the LB position. Tennessee obviously didn't have too much trouble scoring although I will grant that a good bit of that was pace of play and Purdue not getting lined up rather than purely scheme. Tennessee even burned Bama a few times on pace of play so that's not an easy task. The ACC is a much more open offense conference than the Big 10 so I wonder how willing he is to adapt his scheme to the opponent and offenses we are facing and/or whether he would use rover sized players(200-210 lbs) at the Sam instead of LB sized players(220-230 lbs).
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It's why I'm not all that sure he moves to a full time 4-3.

Only two teams in the conference run a 4-3 and even then those two bail out for a 4-2-5 more often than not. Also flipping a roster from a 4-2-5 to a 4-3 without a full year of a recruiting cycle is.. not the smartest. Especially when Wake is down to two maybe three playable LBs.
 
deacon14 said:
I know RB is a flashy position, but I don't get why people fixate on this as Wake fans. Under Clawson, here is how the top RB carries have broken down by season:

2021: CBS 131, Turner 126, Ellison 107
2020: CBS 142, Walker 119
2019: Newman 180 (QB but leading rusher), Carney 158, Walker 98
2018: Carney 188, Colburn 159
2017: Colburn 166, Byrd 77, Carney 63 (Only played 8 games and majority of Byrd carries were in games he missed)
2016: Carney 156, Colburn 151
2015: Bell 129, Colburn 66
2014: Robinson 98, Wortham 84, Reynolds 69

So I guess we had a legitimate starting RB in 2015, and Colburn got the bulk of the carries in 2017 due to Carney injuries. But other than that, the RB carries get split close to evenly. Ellison, Turner, and at least one other guy will all get a lot of carries next season.
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2020 was a glaring mistake.
 
macktheknife said:
2020 was a glaring mistake.
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Really would prefer to not to get into another pissing match about KW3's usage, but at least, keep in mind that KW3 missed WF's last two games in 2020. Up to that point, he had more carries than CBS.
 
deacon14 said:
I mean these are all somewhat legitimate questions, but the only one that really is going to determine how the season goes is the 4th one and any other ones about the defense. I actually think Bothroyd and Davis will be two really good ACC DEs next season, but we need some people to step up at DT and LB for next season.

As for your other X-factors, I feel as though they are all pretty straightforward:

Hartman is an All ACC level QB, we don't need to squeeze any more out of him, although I'm sure he'll continue to improve somewhat.

I can't even remember the last time we had someone I'd call the go-to RB, and we won't have one next year either. It'll be a combo of Ellison, Turner, and whoever steps up of the younger guys.

It seems obvious to me Greene will be the other go-to guy alongside Perry, but I also think we will continue to be spoiled by really good slot receiver play with Williams

Matthew Dennis is already on the team and will almost certainly be the next guy up after Sciba. Kicker is another position we have been spoiled at under Clawson (Weaver/Sciba), but Dennis was highly regarded out of high school I'm fairly sure.
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Yes, agree DT/LB are huge, and maybe the biggest question mark. Lambert will have to earn his $$ quickly.

By "go-to" RB, I just mean who earns the most carries, even if that only ends up being ~65% of the total. I am hoping it is Ellison based on what we saw this season, but who knows what happens in camp.

Greene is definitely the first choice, but he is coming off a big injury. Seems like most guys bounce back OK from this nowadays, and will need to see it on the field.

Hartman doesn't have to be better (it would be difficult to do that, statistically) but what if he can be? That would be the quickest path to make us a 10+ win team again. Imagine a 63%/4000 yrd/30+td/<10 int season with similar rushing numbers to last year. Is he more likely to do that, or regress slightly from this season?

Or another way to think about it, one or all of these scenarios plays out - goes into Carter-Finley and has his best game to win the division/beats Clemson at home with a huge effort/gets redemption in Charlotte with a great game against a coastal team. Even if the season stats are similar or slightly less, that would be "more" from him.

Don't know much about Dennis, hope he has a big leg. His recruiting profiles didn't have much info.
 
Three points from the 35 in.

ETA: Sciba's accuracy influenced Dino Babers choice at 'Cuse and that choice got Wake a TD. Need Dennis to become that guy.
 
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CamLemons said:
It's why I'm not all that sure he moves to a full time 4-3.

Only two teams in the conference run a 4-3 and even then those two bail out for a 4-2-5 more often than not. Also flipping a roster from a 4-2-5 to a 4-3 without a full year of a recruiting cycle is.. not the smartest. Especially when Wake is down to two maybe three playable LBs.
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Would definitely be interested to hear what he says about that when the media gets a chance to ask him some questions. I'm assuming there isn't going to be a press conference but maybe someone will do an interview.

Hoping for big things from Hudson, Hazen and Bryant, but even with that I think we still need reinforcements.
 
BBDeac said:
Regarding defense I have absolutely zero doubt we will be both a much better team against the run and a much more sound tackling team. Lambert will make sure of that. Though I do have a few questions about his scheme. Went back and watched the Music City Bowl to pay attention to the scheme and Lambert really likes to stay in his 4-3 base and I mean really likes it. Now having 3 LBs on the field will help against the run and with tackling and with Lambert's coaching the run D and tackling should doubly improve. However, even against Tennessee when they were using 4 WR with stacks outside the numbers he still stayed in base 4-3 with the Sam backer in coverage nearly on the sideline. That is not exactly ideal and is potentially exploitable especially with our lack of speed at the LB position. Tennessee obviously didn't have too much trouble scoring although I will grant that a good bit of that was pace of play and Purdue not getting lined up rather than purely scheme. Tennessee even burned Bama a few times on pace of play so that's not an easy task. The ACC is a much more open offense conference than the Big 10 so I wonder how willing he is to adapt his scheme to the opponent and offenses we are facing and/or whether he would use rover sized players(200-210 lbs) at the Sam instead of LB sized players(220-230 lbs).
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I'm no football expert, but I also watched a few youtubes of Purdue's defense and didn't think they were necessarily playing traditional 4-3. They had this guy, #6 (https://purduesports.com/sports/football/roster/jalen-graham/10882) who is listed as a LB/S doing a lot of what you mentioned, which seemed similar to the scheme we've played.

The other thing was that in most situations they only had three down linemen with another guy (usually #44) standing up on the edge. So might be getting this all wrong, but it seemed to me like they were playing two hybrid roles -- one DE/LB, and one LB/S, that I thought was interesting, and could be good fits for guys like Garnes or Quincy Bryant.
 
PhDeac said:
Hartman is an All-ACC QB bur he certainly has a lot of room for improvement.
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I agree PH, along with everything mentioned here his completion % will improve if he makes more throws when receivers are open. As good as he is, he missed quite a few of throws when receivers were open.
 
deacon14 said:
2021: 13th, +0.7
2020: 19th, +0.8
2019: 11th, +0.8
2018: 78th, -0.2
2017: 16th, +0.7
2016: 10th, +0.8
2015: 121st, -1.2
2014: 57th, 0.0

So other than young QBs throwing a lot of INTs, we rank in the top 20 every year.

https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/turnover-margin-per-game?date=2015-01-12
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My only hesitation on expecting better is we did actually get lucky in recovering the fumbles we forced. We recovered 14 of 19. I can’t remember where but the stat I saw a while back says defenses recover about 55% of those forced, so we were probably 3-4 on the good side of lucky. If that evens out or even swings to slightly unlucky, that’s a good number to overcome relative to this year. But the general point of expecting us to be positive margin for the season seems a reasonable assumption to make.
 
IAppreciateIt said:
I'm no football expert, but I also watched a few youtubes of Purdue's defense and didn't think they were necessarily playing traditional 4-3. They had this guy, #6 (https://purduesports.com/sports/football/roster/jalen-graham/10882) who is listed as a LB/S doing a lot of what you mentioned, which seemed similar to the scheme we've played.

The other thing was that in most situations they only had three down linemen with another guy (usually #44) standing up on the edge. So might be getting this all wrong, but it seemed to me like they were playing two hybrid roles -- one DE/LB, and one LB/S, that I thought was interesting, and could be good fits for guys like Garnes or Quincy Bryant.
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Yes, 6 was the guy I was referring to that was playing Sam. At 6'2" 220, that is quite a bit bigger than the guys we have had at Rover and the backup was listed as the same size. Both Redd and Garnes are 200 lbs which shades more to being like a DB. Rover and Sam are kind of the same position but the type of guy you put there can play a role in how the position is used. Interested to see which way Lambert decides to go with it.
 
deacon14 said:
I know RB is a flashy position, but I don't get why people fixate on this as Wake fans. Under Clawson, here is how the top RB carries have broken down by season:

2021: CBS 131, Turner 126, Ellison 107
2020: CBS 142, Walker 119
2019: Newman 180 (QB but leading rusher), Carney 158, Walker 98
2018: Carney 188, Colburn 159
2017: Colburn 166, Byrd 77, Carney 63 (Only played 8 games and majority of Byrd carries were in games he missed)
2016: Carney 156, Colburn 151
2015: Bell 129, Colburn 66
2014: Robinson 98, Wortham 84, Reynolds 69

So I guess we had a legitimate starting RB in 2015, and Colburn got the bulk of the carries in 2017 due to Carney injuries. But other than that, the RB carries get split close to evenly. Ellison, Turner, and at least one other guy will all get a lot of carries next season.
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Of course several guys will get lots of carries. We all know our offense. That doesn’t mean speculating on who Clawson chooses as the starter is “fixating.” It’s a pretty standard question.
 
My interest in the RB situation is primarily focused on who the #3 running back will be and how many carries they will get. I think it's safe to say that both Ellison and Turner will get significant playing time. My hope is that Cooley breaks out and that the true freshmen show a lot of promise.
 
There is plenty of room for improvement at QB and RB. The improvement at QB will likely come from Hartman but I wouldn't mind someone else emerging. I'll be disappointed if we don't have at least two RBs better than Turner by September.
 
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