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The Official Fire Lyle Hemphill Into the Sun (Durham) Thread

deacon14 said:
I think Mustapha will get quite a bit of playing time at safety next year. If Greer can stay healthy and Mustapha/Slocum continue to improve I think we will be fine at safety.


I'm hoping that Tyler Williams will be back as well, although he's another guy that seems to consistently be injured.
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Malik has been one of my favorite guys to watch this year...Can't believe I left him out.
 
Gotta think we lose some folks to the portal ourselves, happens to every program. Can't imagine who that might be, since we've been quite shocked in the past. But this group didn't have any holdouts this year unless you consider injuries. Plus this group all supposedly bought in on the team philosophy.
 
CreamyGoodness said:
Malik has been one of my favorite guys to watch this year...Can't believe I left him out.
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I actually think the secondary will be the strength of the defense next year. Holmes/Carson are both high level ACC players, particularly as upperclassmen. Greer is as well if he can stay healthy. And Mustapha, Andersen, Slocum, Roberts, and any new additions should be sufficient depth there.

My biggest worry on the defense is who steps into Fox's role and who steps into Masterson's role. DJ Taylor and Chase Jones are both decent players, but neither seems to have potential to be a high level ACC starter. I'd love it if a younger LB like Dylan Hazen, Quincy Bryant or Jaylen Hudson could make a leap forward and be the other starter with Smenda next year.
 
wufu bufu said:
Gotta think we lose some folks to the portal ourselves, happens to every program. Can't imagine who that might be, since we've been quite shocked in the past. But this group didn't have any holdouts this year unless you consider injuries. Plus this group all supposedly bought in on the team philosophy.
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Most likely transfers are rising sophomores/juniors who haven’t developed on schedule and don’t figure to get playing time next year, and redshirt graduates who want masters programs that Wake doesn’t offer. I don’t know which specific players on our roster fit that criteria, but that’s where the attrition will come from.
 
Someone on staff needs to be closely analyzing every top-half B10 team and pursue guys who may be interested in leaving.
 
I think Perry should stay and hope he will but just acknowledging that young guys make premature decisions all the time and he’s had a huge year. But yeah he could be a monster with another year in the Kevin Higgins Finishing School for Wide Receivers.
 
deacon14 said:
I actually think the secondary will be the strength of the defense next year. Holmes/Carson are both high level ACC players, particularly as upperclassmen. Greer is as well if he can stay healthy. And Mustapha, Andersen, Slocum, Roberts, and any new additions should be sufficient depth there.

My biggest worry on the defense is who steps into Fox's role and who steps into Masterson's role. DJ Taylor and Chase Jones are both decent players, but neither seems to have potential to be a high level ACC starter. I'd love it if a younger LB like Dylan Hazen, Quincy Bryant or Jaylen Hudson could make a leap forward and be the other starter with Smenda next year.
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IIRC Jaylen Hudson was considered a big get at the time and was sough after by State in particular.
 
PaddyWF said:
Someone on staff needs to be closely analyzing every top-half B10 team and pursue guys who may be interested in leaving.
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Didn't Mel Tucker say they had a dedicated staffer just constantly hitting refresh on the Transfer Portal app/page/whatever they have, and when KW3 popped up he immediately took it to the coaching staff? Believe i heard it on one of the Gameday interviews, UM-MSU i recall.

ETA: Gotta imagine every P5 program has someone that does this.
 
That's what the Recruiting Coordinator should be doing.
 
here's something weird: our defensive analyst (since 2019) is jim hofher https://godeacs.com/sports/football/roster/coaches/jim-hofher/771 who has some head coaching experience but has never been a coach on the defensive side of the ball in his career according to wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Hofher

feels like a place we could upgrade, i know it's a landing spot for lots of old guys who probably don't want to work too hard but have experience (hofher kinda fits the bill if he were a defensive coach)
 
The one bad thing about our season extending is being late to the DC party.
 
I'm with others and will also be surprised/very surprised if Clawson doesn't bring in a new DC. The issue he's going to have is finding a DC who won't want to bring his entire crew. I don't think we get rid of Cohen, but pretty much every other person on that side of the ball can be let go and upgraded, IMHO.
 
SkyDivingDeacon said:
I'm with others and will also be surprised/very surprised if Clawson doesn't bring in a new DC. The issue he's going to have is finding a DC who won't want to bring his entire crew. I don't think we get rid of Cohen, but pretty much every other person on that side of the ball can be let go and upgraded, IMHO.
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Curious. How much time have you spent watching practice and getting to know how each defensive coach interacts with the players? How much time does Clawson spend interacting with the defense? Should he get fired too? WF has 6 coaches assigned to the defense, and you have assessed that all, but one is worthless? Fans clamoring for firings is so lame. Clawson has coached football for 32 years. He has head coached for 22 years. He has won at places that had been deemed "impossible to win". He knows how to assemble a staff. He knows how to upgrade a staff. If Clawson feels changes will improve the program. He will do it, but he's not going to make changes to just mollify yahoos who become experts by watching the games on the weekends.
 
Seems like an overreaction, Pilch. Cohen is the only member of the defensive staff who was on Clawson's original 2014 staff. Cohen was on Clawson's Fordham staff. By comparison, Ruggiero and Hunter (RB) came over with Clawson from BGSU and Higgins (WR) was on his 2014 staff. I don't think it takes watching practice for a fan to think Clawson may be more loyal to Cohen than the other defensive staff.
 
We dam well better be better on defense next year. Just for grins, I looked up the depth charts of Clemson and NC State. I was surprised how young they were. Both will be better next year and we have a lot of work to keep up. I agree with most here that DT and LB are our biggest needs. I know he is a veteran, but Smenda was a disappointment to me; too many missed tackles and out of position much of the time.
 
What do you guys think about Kern, transfer portal? Got to think he probably knows he's no better than #2 then next 2 years and he's got a great arm by the looks of it. Don't know if you can read anything into this, but Griffis came in late Saturday instead of Kern?
 
PhDeac said:
Seems like an overreaction, Pilch. Cohen is the only member of the defensive staff who was on Clawson's original 2014 staff. Cohen was on Clawson's Fordham staff. By comparison, Ruggiero and Hunter (RB) came over with Clawson from BGSU and Higgins (WR) was on his 2014 staff. I don't think it takes watching practice for a fan to think Clawson may be more loyal to Cohen than the other defensive staff.
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Exactly. Pilch, calm down.

I don't think I'm saying anything that outlandish here and not claiming to be an expert. It's pretty commonsensical, though. Our DL is talented and has played well for a while and Cohen has been with Clawson for a long time (players also apparently love the guy...Boogie, Ejiofor, etc. have said as much in interviews and I take them at their word). Our secondary and LBs have been a problem for years. Some of those position coaches are relatively new and don't have the history that Cohen does and the groups they lead have been a sore spot on our overall defense. If a new DC came in, I can't imagine that they'd be ok running things as they currently are seeing as though we're the 91st rated scoring defense in the country and schools like BC who we dominated this past weekend are tied for 33rd. We don't need to be a top 10 defense...just something a lot better than where we've been (we were 97th in 2020, 83rd in 2019, 102nd in 2018, etc.).

Not calling for people to be fired and/or blamed. Clawson owns some of this too and I don't see him taking a gamble on an unproven DC again next year when we could have another shot at a conference championship and even the CFP.

ETA: I've been curious if our issues were scheme-related or talent and I swear, the more I watch the more convinced that it's our defensive scheme and game-planning than it is talent (except for at LB...we have a huge talent/speed deficiency there).
 
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SkyDivingDeacon said:
…(we were 97th(In scoring defense) in 2020, 83rd in 2019, 102nd in 2018, etc.).
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This is why Clawson needs to make a coaching change this off-season. We can’t risk what is likely Wolford’s last season with a terrible defense. The window for Wake football to legitimize itself is not going to be open very long, and Clawson can’t afford to waste that opportunity simply being loyal to a bad coach.

This season we had an 11 win offense and a 3 win defense, fortunately the way things shook out we won 10. Had a couple of breaks gone against us, a couple of 3rd and long passes not been completed, we could easily have had another mediocre 7 win season. We shouldn’t count on all those breaks going our way again next year.
 
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