Comments

Michael,
The answer to No. 1 is that Skylar was first-team coming out of spring because he was out there the whole time while Stachitas and Cross missed practices because of injury and Tanner was still in Texas.
For No. 2, Grobe has said he’ll play it by ear. I take that to mean he will take every factor he can into consideration. The big factors I see are how bad is Stachitas hurt, how are the Deacons doing and how many more games do they have to play.
And for No. 3, a coaching staff can’t coach scared. If they spent too much time worrying about what might happen down the road, they won’t be doing justice to this year’s team, nor will they be doing justice to all those who follow the program.

Dan on 09/02/2010 (12:39 am)

Dan,
3 quick questions.  1 - what happened that Skylar fell so far back after supposedly having been first team after spring practice.  Did he fall off, or did the others step up even more?  And is there any role for him now that he’s down on the depth chart?
2 - Grobe said “We won’t be afraid to play him, but we will have to have a need to play him. If Ted plays really well, we might be a little more hesitant to play Tanner and instead look at Skylar Jones or Brendan Cross”.  Does this mean that if Stachitis is playing well and gets injured and he’s out for a few plays (or the rest of the game even without knowing how seriously the injury is), that they wouldn’t put in Tanner with the hope that Stachitis gets back in the next series/game and thus they can preserve Tanner’s redshirt?  Which effectively means that Cross/Jones should be ready for going in immediately in the event of apparent injury? 
3 - I presume the staff is really high on Price.  Is there fear that, if Stachitis plays well and Price is redshirted, he would consider transferring since then Stachitis would still have 2 more years before the job would be clearly his?
Thanks for all your reporting.  Can’t wait to get started tomorrow.

Michael on 09/01/2010 (9:22 pm)

Dan,

I don’t think that anyone argues with the wisdom of Coach Grobe’s decision to redshirt almost all of his incoming freshmen when he first took over at Wake Forest.  The personnel simply needed that extra year of development in order to compete at a higher level. 

However, I give Coach Grobe a lot of credit with adapting his philosophies to the changing circumstances associated with better recruiting classes.  He never said that he would automatically redshirt all incoming freshman.  But many coaches are so set in their ways that I think it would be difficult a lot of high school players to believe that they would honestly get a shot at earning their way on the field in their first year. 

In the future, do you envision Coach Grobe and the staff being able to compete for more gifted recruits now that it has been demonstrated that the best players will in fact be on the field?

DC on 09/01/2010 (1:52 pm)

Lee,
Not completely. I agree that Coach Grobe is enamored with what he has seen of Price and is anxious to get him on the field. But it bears noting that Stachitas has had a really, really good camp. Jim said last week that if Stachitas had not played lights out this month, Price would be the starter.

Dan on 09/01/2010 (1:35 pm)

Among equals, you go with the elder.  But it sounds like Coach Grobe believes Price stands a bit past Stachitas, and would really prefer to go with the true freshman. Is that how you read it, Dan?

Lee Anglin on 09/01/2010 (1:15 pm)

Our recruiting is coming around and the results are starting to show.  That’s why I think we’re underrated and will be far more competitive than most are predicting this year.  True freshmen knocking off upper classmen corners, a true freshman QB that Grobe is having a hard time keeping off the field.  I like where this is going!

RacerDeac on 09/01/2010 (12:44 pm)