“We really said…let’s not lose the game on offense” – Coach Clawson postgame on his offensive gameplan
It may not have been pretty, but it’s hard to argue with the results. The offensive game plan looked like a reaction to the previous weekend. Against Army, the Wake offense suffered from a low completion percentage and was plagued by interceptions. Against Virginia, the plan was keep the ball on the ground – seemingly no matter what. In a nod to the flexibility of Coach R’s offense, out went the 3-WR sets that we’ve become so accustomed to (at least on a number of plays) and onto the field came TE Devin Pike and FB Charles Argenzio to provide blocking for fan favorite Cade Carney and sophomore revelation Matt Colburn. The TV announcers went nuts with praise on a couple of occasions where Coach R went old school with the Inverted Wishbone (QB in the pistol with Pike and Argenzio on either side and Carney behind him in the I).
The overall plan seemed to work well for the first quarter. Wolford (64 yard carry on a broken play), Carney (18 yard carry) and Colburn (13 yard carry) each had their longest runs of the game early on. Carney and Colburn combined for a 70% success rate (which I define as the % of carries for 3 or more yards) in 1Q. However, the stats were more pedestrian the rest of the way – presumably after UVA made some adjustments. After the first quarter, Carney and Colburn combined for 71 yards on 24 carries (just under 3 yards per carry), and a success rate of 42%. Not a terrible result by any means, and full credit to the RBs for battling hard for many of those yards.
Wolford got going a little in the second quarter, hitting on 5-of-6 passes for 63 yards highlighted by a 21-yarder to Cam Serigne (who I think has been slowed by a nagging hamstring injury) and a 15-yarder to Cade Carney (who made a great play to adjust to the ball).
The second half was somewhat of a wasteland offensively with only 79 yards of total offense. The longest pass play was an 8 yard slant to Alex Bachman. The longest run was a 13 yarder by Wolford. In the second half, Wake’s longest play from scrimmage was actually a 15 yard facemask penalty called on UVA.
For their part, UVA’s offense struggled against Wake’s D, but stayed in the game because they were curiously efficient from a scoring standpoint. They crossed Wake’s 35 yard line only 3 times and came away with touchdowns each time. Those also happened to be the only 3 drives of greater than 25 yards that the Cavs would muster on the day.
Remarkably, Wake won the battle of explosive plays despite generating only two (the Wolford run and the Serigne reception) to UVA’s one (a 45 yard reception by RB Smoke Mizell).
The difference in the game was, of course, the 3 turnovers created by the safety tandem of Cam Glenn (who had returned to the game following what looked like a painful shoulder injury) and the outstanding play of rFR Jessie Bates. Bates INT and TD-dive will be remembered as one of the plays of the season, but the fine play that he made on the ball to create the Glenn INT was arguably just as important. (Fun Fact: Bates now has more TD’s (2) than all of Wake’s outside WRs COMBINED (1).)
OTHER NOTES
It was great to see Wake generating pressure with inside pass rushes. Josh Banks was the best DL on the day and Chris Stewart was a force in 3Q with a pass deflection and a TFL.
Patrick Osterhage played most of the way at OC after Josh Harris departed with an ankle injury. A’Lique Terry dressed for game, but I believe he is dealing with an injury of his own.
I think it was nickel-CB Josh Okonye who took over at safety during a brief period where both Janvion and Glenn had exited the game with injuries.
Wake benefitted from a number of drops by UVA receivers.
Wake’s CBs had zero pass breakups on 39 pass attempts. On the season, Watson, Henderson, Bassey and Austin have combined for just 10 pass breakups (an average of roughly 1 per game).
The PI penalties on Watson and Henderson certainly weren’t egregious, but they were good calls. Both times they had gotten too active with their hands. Corners have it so tough out there. Watson’s PI negated what was otherwise a nice play by him.
The holding penalty on Herron that negated the very nice catch by Cortez Lewis looked like a very bad call. Maybe I don’t understand the rule well enough, but he looked like he just dominated the DL on that play.
On first down, Wake ran the ball 75% of the time. On second down plays that had fewer than 9 yards to go, Wake ran the ball 100% of the time.
I counted 3 missed tackles during Daniel Hamm’s 1Q 26 yard punt return.
I’m struggling to evaluate the OL this season. There’s positives and negatives. There are sometimes holes for the RBs to hit, but sometimes it seems like Carney and Colburn are having to create something out of nothing. Some teams (like NCSU) clearly felt that they had to blitz to get pressure. Our tackles (especially Herron) are actually really good at keeping DEs in front of them – even if they initially get the edge. But it was really apparent in the UVA game how much our OLs can get pushed back into Wolford’s passing lanes, and how quickly that push can flush him from the pocket. There’s been so much improvement this year, but obviously still the need for more.
Next to the Bates pick-6, my favorite moment might have been when Wake’s punt return unit – with the game safely in-hand - did a sideline parody of UVA’s annoying midfield jump around. Complete with water throwing etc. Good times.
Congrats to the staff on the bowl bid and the renewed sense of momentum within the program. I’m of the view that success should be measured by bowl wins and Wake will get a chance to just that this year. I’ve noted in the recruiting thread before that the recruits that I’ve followed on Twitter seem to watch ALL of the bowl games and for that reason I’ve hated that we haven’t been part of it over the past few years.
It may not have been pretty, but it’s hard to argue with the results. The offensive game plan looked like a reaction to the previous weekend. Against Army, the Wake offense suffered from a low completion percentage and was plagued by interceptions. Against Virginia, the plan was keep the ball on the ground – seemingly no matter what. In a nod to the flexibility of Coach R’s offense, out went the 3-WR sets that we’ve become so accustomed to (at least on a number of plays) and onto the field came TE Devin Pike and FB Charles Argenzio to provide blocking for fan favorite Cade Carney and sophomore revelation Matt Colburn. The TV announcers went nuts with praise on a couple of occasions where Coach R went old school with the Inverted Wishbone (QB in the pistol with Pike and Argenzio on either side and Carney behind him in the I).
The overall plan seemed to work well for the first quarter. Wolford (64 yard carry on a broken play), Carney (18 yard carry) and Colburn (13 yard carry) each had their longest runs of the game early on. Carney and Colburn combined for a 70% success rate (which I define as the % of carries for 3 or more yards) in 1Q. However, the stats were more pedestrian the rest of the way – presumably after UVA made some adjustments. After the first quarter, Carney and Colburn combined for 71 yards on 24 carries (just under 3 yards per carry), and a success rate of 42%. Not a terrible result by any means, and full credit to the RBs for battling hard for many of those yards.
Wolford got going a little in the second quarter, hitting on 5-of-6 passes for 63 yards highlighted by a 21-yarder to Cam Serigne (who I think has been slowed by a nagging hamstring injury) and a 15-yarder to Cade Carney (who made a great play to adjust to the ball).
The second half was somewhat of a wasteland offensively with only 79 yards of total offense. The longest pass play was an 8 yard slant to Alex Bachman. The longest run was a 13 yarder by Wolford. In the second half, Wake’s longest play from scrimmage was actually a 15 yard facemask penalty called on UVA.
For their part, UVA’s offense struggled against Wake’s D, but stayed in the game because they were curiously efficient from a scoring standpoint. They crossed Wake’s 35 yard line only 3 times and came away with touchdowns each time. Those also happened to be the only 3 drives of greater than 25 yards that the Cavs would muster on the day.
Remarkably, Wake won the battle of explosive plays despite generating only two (the Wolford run and the Serigne reception) to UVA’s one (a 45 yard reception by RB Smoke Mizell).
The difference in the game was, of course, the 3 turnovers created by the safety tandem of Cam Glenn (who had returned to the game following what looked like a painful shoulder injury) and the outstanding play of rFR Jessie Bates. Bates INT and TD-dive will be remembered as one of the plays of the season, but the fine play that he made on the ball to create the Glenn INT was arguably just as important. (Fun Fact: Bates now has more TD’s (2) than all of Wake’s outside WRs COMBINED (1).)
OTHER NOTES
It was great to see Wake generating pressure with inside pass rushes. Josh Banks was the best DL on the day and Chris Stewart was a force in 3Q with a pass deflection and a TFL.
Patrick Osterhage played most of the way at OC after Josh Harris departed with an ankle injury. A’Lique Terry dressed for game, but I believe he is dealing with an injury of his own.
I think it was nickel-CB Josh Okonye who took over at safety during a brief period where both Janvion and Glenn had exited the game with injuries.
Wake benefitted from a number of drops by UVA receivers.
Wake’s CBs had zero pass breakups on 39 pass attempts. On the season, Watson, Henderson, Bassey and Austin have combined for just 10 pass breakups (an average of roughly 1 per game).
The PI penalties on Watson and Henderson certainly weren’t egregious, but they were good calls. Both times they had gotten too active with their hands. Corners have it so tough out there. Watson’s PI negated what was otherwise a nice play by him.
The holding penalty on Herron that negated the very nice catch by Cortez Lewis looked like a very bad call. Maybe I don’t understand the rule well enough, but he looked like he just dominated the DL on that play.
On first down, Wake ran the ball 75% of the time. On second down plays that had fewer than 9 yards to go, Wake ran the ball 100% of the time.
I counted 3 missed tackles during Daniel Hamm’s 1Q 26 yard punt return.
I’m struggling to evaluate the OL this season. There’s positives and negatives. There are sometimes holes for the RBs to hit, but sometimes it seems like Carney and Colburn are having to create something out of nothing. Some teams (like NCSU) clearly felt that they had to blitz to get pressure. Our tackles (especially Herron) are actually really good at keeping DEs in front of them – even if they initially get the edge. But it was really apparent in the UVA game how much our OLs can get pushed back into Wolford’s passing lanes, and how quickly that push can flush him from the pocket. There’s been so much improvement this year, but obviously still the need for more.
Next to the Bates pick-6, my favorite moment might have been when Wake’s punt return unit – with the game safely in-hand - did a sideline parody of UVA’s annoying midfield jump around. Complete with water throwing etc. Good times.
Congrats to the staff on the bowl bid and the renewed sense of momentum within the program. I’m of the view that success should be measured by bowl wins and Wake will get a chance to just that this year. I’ve noted in the recruiting thread before that the recruits that I’ve followed on Twitter seem to watch ALL of the bowl games and for that reason I’ve hated that we haven’t been part of it over the past few years.
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