As Wake Forest nears the halfway point of Fall camp, the offense is still getting its footing. The gap between the performance of the defense and that of the offense is not as big as it was last week. But there are still questions to be answered.
Wake Forest Offense
Photo from Tony Siracusa
Progress Made?
After a feisty full-contact practice in pads on Tuesday, Wake head coach Jake Dickert said he was pleased with the progress the offense has made in recent days. “We are pretty much fully installed on both sides of the ball,” he told the media after practice on Tuesday. “The ebbs and flows throughout camp are good. You don’t ever want one side smoking the other side.”
He called Tuesday a humbling day for the defense. There were a handful of what he called discipline penalties during the live scrimmaging. Offsides and pass interference calls put the defense in some tough spots. “The things you control can beat you,” he said of the mental errors. “I was trying to make our team understand, we own that stuff. The more disciplined we can be to our execution and habits, the better football team we’ll be.”
The Quarterback Race
There is no change in the quarterback race. Dickert said he was pleased with the progress from Robby Ashford and Deshaun Purdie. But it is still a three-person race for snaps in a game. “Our guys need to be on the move. They need to be running. You see the skill sets now that are really developed,” Dickert said, as he referred to those skillsets as, “Elite.” That includes true freshman Steele Pizzella. “This guy can roll. Every situation we get in, he’s answered the bell,” Dickert said. “He’s kind of a little bit of a hybrid blend of those two guys (Ashford and Purdie).
Offensive coordinator Rob Ezell, the day before, said he was encouraged that the quarterback competition had three players taking the bulk of the snaps. “All three have really elevated their play from the Spring,” he said.
The Discipline Issue
Defensive lineman Nuer Gatkuoth felt the issues on his side of the ball on Tuesday. “I think today we were undisciplined as a whole. We had a lot of mental errors, and you could the offense get one up on us,” he said after Tuesday’s practice. “There was just a lot of undisciplined people on the field, including myself.”
He had one of those offside penalties that Dickert referred to. “That was me, undisciplined, so I’ve just got to get back,” he said. “I’m going to get my a** chewed out in the meeting room today, but it is what it is. I’m going to come back next practice and change it.”
Freak
The day before, we broke the news to Ezell in our time with him that Bruce Feldman’s annually anticipated “Freaks List” included one Demon Deacon. He was not surprised when we told him who it was. Running back Demond Claiborne is 63rd on the list of 101 physically gifted college football players.
Claiborne is listed as only 5’-10”, 200 pounds. But he has verifiably squatted 500 pounds in the weight room. He is also considered one of the fastest running backs in the country. “At practice, every rep for him is like a game rep,” Ezell said.
Dickert said it was an easy call for Claiborne to be on the list. “This guy IS a freak in everything he does and the way he practices,” Dickert said it was the best (most productive) Summer of Claiborne’s career, and the results are clear to see.
Claiborne Says
We asked Claiborne if he was offended to only be number 63 on the list. “It’s cool. I play ball,” he said with a chuckle. “All that weight room stuff, you can be a weight room All-American and not touch the field.” But the longer he talked about it, it was almost as though he couldn’t help himself. “To be tagged with an award and to be number 63, some stuff is just disrespectful. And I just let that be disrespectful, and I just keep moving with my life.”
Claiborne gave credit to strength and conditioning coach Ben Iannochione for boosting his strength and dropping his body fat. Wake will have a full run scrimmage on Saturday morning.
Main Image: Tony Siracusa