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Pinstripe Bowl vs Michigan State

Deaconblue said:
MSU D-line may gave had something to do with Wake's difficulties on offense. Front four: 2nd team all B1G, 3rd team and HM. Probably the second best D-line Wake faced.
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Yep, MSU was pretty good, especially on D. They lost 5 games in a row this year to #2 OSU, #8 Wisconsin, #10 PSU, #14 Michigan, and Illinois. Their other loss was to Arizona State, who also beat #6 Oregon. They also have a good program and were in the college football playoffs 4 years ago.
 
Rafi said:
Yep, MSU was pretty good, especially on D. They lost 5 games in a row this year to #2 OSU, #8 Wisconsin, #10 PSU, #14 Michigan, and Illinois. Their other loss was to Arizona State, who also beat #6 Oregon. They also have a good program and were in the college football playoffs 4 years ago.
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We had every chance to win that game and didn’t. Credit to them, but we lost it as much as they won it.
 
Better. Better team. They weren’t good. And we were worse.
 
Yeah. Don't get me wrong, 8-5 is a good year. But, I'm actually disappointed that we were not 10-3, or 11-2 this year. Clawson overall at Wake is 36-40. The last 4 seasons 30-22.
 
PhDeac said:
Better. Better team. They weren’t good. And we were worse.
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I think they were good and we were good. You would describe them as bad and us as worse than bad? [I'm not really sure why I am entering into a semantics discussion with PhDeac...]
 
I have a tough time describing a 7-6 team and a team that finished 1-5 as “good.”

I don’t want to get into a semantics discussion with someone who thinks there’s nothing in between good and bad.
 
Michigan State lost by at least 21 points to every top 25 team they played. Calling them "good" is being extremely generous.
 
Clawson is a good program builder. He recruits well (for Wake). He motivates well. His players believe in what he is doing.
In my opinion, these are the most important parts of being a great coach.

He needs to find some great coordinators that can X and O much more creative offenses and defenses. The lack of creativity has been talked about a lot but it is the real problem.
Wake will never be good enough to just jam the ball down your throat. We have to keep the opponent guessing.

On defense, we were God-awful on 3rd down. Why rush just 3 guys and give the opponent forever to find a receiver.

I hope we keep Clawson for a long time, but if we are not more creative, this is the ceiling.

People keep saying they hope Newman stays. Where would he go? Canadian Football League? XFL?
 
knowell said:
Clawson is a good program builder. He recruits well (for Wake). He motivates well. His players believe in what he is doing.
In my opinion, these are the most important parts of being a great coach.

He needs to find some great coordinators that can X and O much more creative offenses and defenses.
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Ruggiero has re-written the Wake offensive record books. Two of our top 8 rushers all time (Colburn, Carney), 3 of the top 7 receiving seasons all time (Dortch, Surratt, Hinton), most TDs (Wolford), most yards (Wolford), most yards and points for the team, etc.

The defense has been much weaker than the offense since Elko left, but I think Hemphill has them trending in the right direction in his first full season. In particular, third down defense was much better.

Kick coverage really hurt us a few times this year, and that definitely needs to improve.

As Clawson said in his press conference yesterday, he will study this season closely, make changes, and attack 2020 with a vengeance. I can’t wait to see it.
 
Did we win any of the games this season that we wore the gold helmets in?
 
BirdinBama said:
Yeah. Don't get me wrong, 8-5 is a good year. But, I'm actually disappointed that we were not 10-3, or 11-2 this year. Clawson overall at Wake is 36-40. The last 4 seasons 30-22.
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Just stand by dude. We are heading in the right direction. But it's done in steps generally, not Superman leaps.
 
I can't understand why everybody is nitpicking so much. 8 wins, as I've said all season is a successsful season for "THIS" team. Of course we could have won another game or two, but we definitely could have lost several we won. The overall ability of the team offensively and defensively was never more than ok, which for Wake Forest football is still better than the norm. No breakaway running backs, no dominant o-line, inconsistent qb play, lots of dropped passes, an offense that relied on trickery rather than talent, key injuries on both sides of the ball, and the list goes on. Clawson's not Urban Meyer, but he's done a pretty good job making us somewhat competitive. I say accept that double digit wins for Wake Forest is more of an ultimate one off goal than a legitimate level of expectation. We don't play the game in a vacuum and our success is more related to what our opponents can and can't do vs what we can a can't do. Our abilities are always limited. Our mentality isn't and that's where Clawson has done a damn good job.
 
It’s killing me that we beat Memphis a year ago and now they’re hanging with PSU.
 
Rafi said:
Ruggiero has re-written the Wake offensive record books. Two of our top 8 rushers all time (Colburn, Carney), 3 of the top 7 receiving seasons all time (Dortch, Surratt, Hinton), most TDs (Wolford), most yards (Wolford), most yards and points for the team, etc.

The defense has been much weaker than the offense since Elko left, but I think Hemphill has them trending in the right direction in his first full season. In particular, third down defense was much better.

Kick coverage really hurt us a few times this year, and that definitely needs to improve.

As Clawson said in his press conference yesterday, he will study this season closely, make changes, and attack 2020 with a vengeance. I can’t wait to see it.
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That can be deceiving since we run so many plays and our opponents run so many plays. In yards per play and opponents yards per play we roughly have the same ranking. IOW, our offensive and defensive efficiencies are pretty similar.
 
I've watched Wake a long time and have seen some pretty awful defenses. Dooley and Grobe had some good ones. But even with Elko it seems standard that every Wake opponent under Clawson is capable of 400-600 yards of O. Even Utah State, who struggled vs some of their conference Ds, lit us up.
 
80deacon said:
I've watched Wake a long time and have seen some pretty awful defenses. Dooley and Grobe had some good ones. But even with Elko it seems standard that every Wake opponent under Clawson is capable of 400-600 yards of O. Even Utah State, who struggled vs some of their conference Ds, lit us up.
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That’s in part because our offense eats up such little time per possession, increasing the number of possessions per game.

By at least one metric our defense was better than our offense this year.
 
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