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Q&A with Coach Clawson - CBSsports.com

I didn't realize wake had the 32 best defense in the country last year. Is that correct? I sure as shit believe the 118 offense.
 
Every time I hear/read Clawson talk I just smile....so dang refreshing. Fingers crossed that he and his staff can really coach....
 
Yep. Our defense was pretty good last year. We held five opponents to under 2 TDs (Presby, Army, State, Maryland, Cuse). We only allowed over 4 TDs twice (FSU and Clemson). Scoring was the big problem with our team and program under Grobe. A team can't afford to go 0-5 in games in which the other team scores 21 to 28 points. That's just ridiculous. Over half the teams in the country last year averaged 29+ points a game.

Clawson says all the right things. He has nailed every interview. His response to the union question was perfect, far better than what we've seen from Hatch.
 
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PhDeac said:
Yep. Our defense was pretty good last year. We held five opponents to under 2 TDs (Presby, Army, State, Maryland, Cuse). We only allowed over 4 TDs twice (FSU and Clemson). Scoring was the big problem with our team and program under Grobe. A team can't afford to go 0-5 in games in which the other team scores 21 to 28 points. That's just ridiculous. Over half the teams in the country last year averaged 29+ points a game.

Clawson says all the right things. He has nailed every interview. His response to the union question was perfect, far better than what we've seen from Hatch.
Click to expand...

My biggest "in season" complaint about the Grobe era. He had about zero expectation out of the offense. Always heard him saying things like "we needed one more stop and didn't get it," or "our defense wore down," or "we needed to force more turnovers, etc." Rarely and not until the very end did he mention anything about the offense being inept. Lobo should have never been promoted to OC, and at the very most should have been let go after 2 years.

Funny thing is, it seems like it would be easier for an undersized, out-manned team like WF generally is, to be more successful on offense than defense. I mean get a couple of quality skill players and be creative. Seems harder to build solid defenses, yet we were the opposite. That's why I love hearing Claw talk about a balanced approach. I know people are tired of hearing about it but Lobo lost us a bunch of games, and Grobe ignored the problem for years.
 
Turd Ferguson said:
I know people are tired of hearing about it but Lobo lost us a bunch of games, and Grobe ignored the problem for years.
Click to expand...

If Lobo was so bad, how did he land such a high profile job just up the street at WSSU?!?!
 
I'm pretty optimistic about offense under Clawson because our talent and coaching on offense can't get much worse.

The thing about Grobe and offense is he could have followed the FRESH DEACS blueprint and just heavily overrecruited on defense and specialists and try to put a Top 20 defense and elite K/P on the field every year and let the offense be whatever it was going to be with less depth and more risk of players not panning out. But he didn't do that.
 
The 06-08 offenses seemed to be a bit more fun to watch, at least. I do realize however that our D was even still SOOOO much better.
 
'09 was our only strong offensive year under Lobo, Riley's senior year
 
And by strong you mean we finished #66 in the nation in scoring offense.
 
Yeah. 41st in yards, so maybe the best wording is slightly above average, and that was with probably the greatest QB in Wake history. That also was when we stopped forcing turnovers on the regular
 
Glad to see he used the C word.

Championship.
 
I like this line and how almost matter-of-fact it is.

"To me, things in football a lot of times are cyclical. Obviously we have two programs that are both in our division that had great seasons last year and are certainly known as very strong football schools. That probably isn't going to change in the near future, but if you want to be the best you've got to beat the best. If we're going to win the ACC we're going to have to compete and beat those teams."
ric-flair-woo-gif.gif
 
PhDeac said:
Yep. Our defense was pretty good last year. We held five opponents to under 2 TDs (Presby, Army, State, Maryland, Cuse). We only allowed over 4 TDs twice (FSU and Clemson). Scoring was the big problem with our team and program under Grobe. A team can't afford to go 0-5 in games in which the other team scores 21 to 28 points. That's just ridiculous. Over half the teams in the country last year averaged 29+ points a game.

Clawson says all the right things. He has nailed every interview. His response to the union question was perfect, far better than what we've seen from Hatch.
Click to expand...

The defense played good enough to win about every game last year, except for maybe Clemson. Heck the defense was good against FSU, we just kept turning the freaking ball over and giving them points and short fields.
 
During the season before last, we almost always had a successful opening series on offense. Apparently the plays were scripted and involved an excellent mix of plays. It was remarkable how we would have defenses off balance. But then we would settle into a very bland, conservative and predictable pattern. Or, defenses would adjust and we could not answer. Nonetheless, it was enough to suggest that we could have been much better offensively than we were.

Apart from a steadily decreasing quantity of talent, the determination to keep games close by conservative play-calling and ball control killed whatever offensive potential we may have possessed.
 
mebanedeac said:
During the season before last, we almost always had a successful opening series on offense. Apparently the plays were scripted and involved an excellent mix of plays. It was remarkable how we would have defenses off balance. But then we would settle into a very bland, conservative and predictable pattern. Or, defenses would adjust and we could not answer. Nonetheless, it was enough to suggest that we could have been much better offensively than we were.

Apart from a steadily decreasing quantity of talent, the determination to keep games close by conservative play-calling and ball control killed whatever offensive potential we may have possessed.
Click to expand...

Agree on the first point. We generally seemed to have one good idea worked up on offense. But defenses adjusted and we never had an answer. We were just poorly coordinated.

And on the other, it is funny about the conservative, ball control mentality, as we weren't very good at controlling the ball. Converting on third down is equivalent to the defense making a stop, but much easier. We didn't seem to understand that. There were times when we did pretty well at the field position game, but that was with some terrific kickers that we haven't had since Swank.
 
Yep. Grobe definitely didn't understand it's nice to limit turnovers, but it doesn't mean much the offense regularly goes 3 and out with a net 33 yard punt.
 
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