Comments

Will,
I’m glad Grobe finally made the tough decision to fire two of his assistants. However, I hope he now fires Lobotzke who should have been fired years ago based on his complete incompetence at his job. If Grobe fires Lobo, that will be the best thing he has done for Wake Forest Football since the 2008 season.

Chris on 01/06/2012 (6:01 pm)

Dan: regarding the two firings at Wake, one is left to wonder about Steed Lobotzke. Being a lifetime fan and alum of WFU in all its sports, I remain puzzled - how can the Deacs go on with the same old offense year after year?  Coach Grobe spoke of the need to change after a while; it seems the change that’s really needed would include at least Coach Lobo.  We’ve been doing the same plan for years and still are mostly losing.  Loyalty is great, and friendship is a tremendous thing.  If the Wake football program is going anywhere that’s qualitatively better, however, does it not need to venture on a better path?  Grobe is the Man, it seems to me.  Steed Lobotzke is not.

Lee Anglin on 01/05/2012 (11:01 am)

Dan- Where are Henry and Billings going? Just saw that both are leaving WF, but did not hear where they are headed! Is there dissension among the coaching staff. They were both with WF for a long time- kind of surprising they would leave. Any word on Lobo being reassigned?

Bobby on 01/04/2012 (11:16 pm)

Chris Givens is absolutely making a mistake.  Watched every other bowl game, from Blackmon at OSU to just about every receiver on VT and Stanford, and they all play hard football, block well, and are go-to men when the game is on the line.

Chris Givens is nowhere close to being a go-to, as was clearly obvious in the Music City Bowl; that was a sad performance.  He’s not a 3rd rounder; he will be be an undrafted free agent and be just like Jon Abbate- sadly.

steven on 01/04/2012 (1:19 pm)

So, is this season still deemed ‘remarkable?’ Sidenote…from my calculations, Grobe has made about $550,000 per win over the last two years. Les Miles has made about $312,500 per win the last two years…anyone else scratching their head?

Casey on 01/04/2012 (1:15 pm)

Dan,

Any update on Chris Givens’ decision on the NFL draft?  I think that a lot of people assumed he was headed to the NFL after developing a mild case of alligator-arms during the bowl game, but I have yet to see a definitive report come out (I know you won’t publish anything until you receive absolute confirmation).

If Givens does decide to leave (I hope he stays), I would be very interested to learn about his thinking on the matter - especially if the NFL advised him that he likely would not be drafted in the first two rounds.  Regardless of his choice, I’d certainly like to thank Chris for a truly great season and wish him the best of luck in the future.

DC on 01/04/2012 (11:19 am)

Grobe nor any of his staff is going anywhere nor should they. All those who are criticizing these past three years are you forgetting the history of Wake Forest football? We have never been known as an elite football program and never really sniffed greatness until Jim Grobe came along. He somehow finds a way to get this team to overachieve with lesser talent than any other team in the conference with the exception of Duke. Grobe finds a way to turn low star recruits into solid football players. He can coach here as long as he desires in my book. That being said maybe he needs to switch some things up within the staff like letting Coach Galloway call more plays and finding away to fix our special teams play which is atrocious.

Will on 01/02/2012 (9:43 pm)

The loss on Friday night gives Wake its third losing season in a row. I hope that Ron Wellman and Jim Grobe take responsibility for the debacle that Wake Forest Football has become and makes some coaching changes starting with the assistants. If Grobe is unwilling to make any changes after three losing seasons, it is time for him to go also. The ACC Championship was now five years ago and does not buy Grobe a pass for the embarrassing losses, horrible offensive play calling and inability to have even a respectable offensive line. I used to think Grobe walked on water but now he can barely keep his head above it.

Chris on 01/02/2012 (5:18 pm)

We don’t get the premium player that the other 1A schools receive. It is that simple. However Coach Grobe gets good play out of these players. Wake has never been a “world Beater’ and probably never willreach that status. Even Duke will pick up a 4A player sometimes. We do not get many of these. Under the circumstances, Grobe does an amazing job. Dan we continue to enjoy your work. Keep it up.

Cal on 01/02/2012 (4:39 pm)

I was at the bowl game and have one obesrvation that no one else has mentioned. I noticed that coach Grobe was talking extensively with several of the ref’s during the game—really giving them an earful. I also noticed several of the assistant coaches also in animated discussions with ref’s. These incidents were not related to the worst call of the game on the no call in the end zone.. Anybody know what the subject was???

steveh on 01/02/2012 (10:23 am)

Wake only won 5 games this year.  Gardner Webb doesn’t count.  Need to man up on defense and go back to the 4-3.  The 3-4 with a very small nose guard DOES NOT WORK.

givens not showing up in bowl on 01/01/2012 (10:36 pm)

JoeyD- You are right- Tanner Price is no Riley Skinner by far! Riley knew how to win! Hopefully, he will learn. Tanner does not know how to do that yet! Tanner has never led us down the field in the closing moments of a game for a winning TD. Riley did that many times over his career. Tanner has not even gotten us close to the goal line with the game in the balance. Riley may not have as a good arm as Tanner, but he had leadership and a will to win that has been lacking from this entire team all year. Tanner has more skilled players around him than Riley ever had, and Riley produced better stats, and more points for the offense. It takes more than a strong arm to be successful-Riley proved that (he won 11, 9, 8, and 5) games over his career!

Bobby on 01/01/2012 (2:44 pm)

Quite honestly Riley Skinner should not be compared to Tanner Price. Skinner’s not in his league. Riley Skinner was never a particularly a great QB, with a great arm, great skills or great leadership capabilities. He happened to be the right guy, standing in the right spot in history.

Tanner Price has never had the defense behind him that Riley Skinner had. Skinner simply had to keep the long field, by not turning the ball over and take advantage of the short field provided by his defense (provided they just didn’t just score on their own).

JoeyD on 01/01/2012 (1:08 am)

John Prine: you are what you are and you ain’t what you ain’t.  Wake teased us with the FSU, ND, and Clemson performances, but ultimately this was an average team.  The Deacs were respectable against MSU.  Think about it - Wake had a chance to beat an average SEC team.  People say an average SEC team is better than most teams thus… I do not think Wake is that far away from being 8-4 or even 9-3.  But next year (and last night) someone needs to make a play.  Is it the QB?  Is it Givens ( I think he was scared on that sideline pass in Q2)?  I think Price will need to carry this team a few times next year.  Like Skinner, Abate, Curry, Moore.  Someone needs to make a play.  Who will it be?

Tony on 12/31/2011 (8:51 pm)

Wake was more competitive than I thought. Two 6-6 teams usually don’t make for a compelling match-up. A 6-6 ACC team vs a 6-6 SEC team made me think, on paper anyway, this would be a mismatch favoring the SEC. I was wrong in that it wasn’t as one sided as I predicted. WF has been a disappointment for three straight seasons. Any Jim Grobe to another school talk has probably been quelled by the recent record. Despite the losing seasons I don’t hear much grumbling from the fan base. WF is lucky to have him and he is also lucky to have WF.

radio_smuggles on 12/31/2011 (6:31 pm)

Stupid cowbells!  The announcers must have said five times (with smirks on their faces in all likelihood) “they’re really not supposed to ring those cowbells while a play is in progress.”  And, of course, not a cowbell was to be heard when MSU was on offense.  If the referees had called a fan interference penalty the first play that Wake ran with all the cowbells ringing, that would have been the end of that.  I know Wake did not have their best effort, but those cowbells essentially made this a home game for MSU.  Ridiculously unfair at neutral site bowl game.  Next time I hope Wake fans bring a bunch of referee whistles or air horns and blow them at inopportune times whenever the other team is on offense.  Maybe the bowl games will realize that fairness overrules “color” in such circumstances.  It may or may not have made some difference in the game, but it certainly did not help Wake call audibles and snap counts while on offense.

Matt on 12/31/2011 (3:50 pm)

A 300-pound D-1 blocker gets embarrasingly pancaked resulting in a chip shot field goal being slammed/blocked, and two snaps later, a middle of the quarterback threows a looping pass to a shockingly open reciever in the end zone.  That was your ball game, and that was the snapshot of what WFU football has become.

That continues to puzzle me. Jim Grobe/WFU football was nothing, if not bloody-knuckled tough up until, oh, 2008.  That’s when I saw the shift, the drift towards “finesse” (read soft).  I understand better than most, that recruiting the long-shots who blossom into Aaron Curry or Riley Skinner is a haphazzard road to success.  But, is it so hard to find a punter?  Someone who can poke it past mid-field with the game on the line in the fourth?  And so on.
What has happened here?

“Offense.”  I read this nonsense that WFU is now a “big play”  scheme.  And yet, I watch our OC run 3-yard crossing patterns 2-dozen times per game, even facing 4th and ten with the bowl game on the line. This is the best we can come up with?  Someone - go back and watch Skinner’s offense - opening game 2007, on the road at Boston College, before he got hurt. Slants, quick flicks, always to recievers on the move UP THE FIELD. Dazzling. Short drops, so that the line did not NEED to hold their blocks for 3…4 counts. And a real pass catching tight end would help again.  And how is it that a D-1 program in a bowl game, has 1, ONE reliable runner? Thank goodness the coaches finally noticed that #27 is a long, hard, off-season away from being on the field, but what in the name of James McDougald has happened with Josh Harris, Dan? Surely you cannot swallow the line that he has “had a hamstring thing” for what-12 weeks in total?  (hmmm… and yet he returns kicks?). 

I feel really bad that Tanner Price got thrown into the grinder that was the 2010 season, because it is so clear to most, that he too is a loooong way from what the team needs, especially in the clutch. As the announces noted with 2:17 to play in the game, and the ball in his hands, down 6,  “there are defining moments for great quarterbacks… ”  What would your definition be after… that?  (See Wake-Maryland…fourth quarter 2007, WInston-Salem for another sophmore qb’s answer). And so it is, with respect, that I ask that the names Price and Skinner no longer be grouped until further review.

On defense, it seems to me that Miss State did us a great favor by never throwing left, even after the weekly wide open touchdown completed in that direction.  Maybe they never had to, when you could always get 10 yards in the right flat where a linebacker never seems to be.

And enough of this “well they ran it when we didn’t have our gaps set up right.”  Huh?  SOmeone needs to teach our guys again that you take ON blockers.  When you run AROUND them, you’ve accomplished what THEY set out to do.  And on that subject, let’s be honest: since oh, the Duke game (a GIFT by the way, and actually, the beginning of the end of this year’s team), opposing coaches realized the best way to deal with our gritty Nikita is to let him run himself out of the play.. “pay attention tailback… just let Whitlock run out of the hole, and then cut back behind him.” To wit: 130 yards and 2 touchdowns, since 10 other D-1 guys were no-where to be found.  “I thought our guys played pretty good defense, with the exception of those big plays.” Another, huh?

One last point, and it backs up my earlier opinion when, in truth, I was stunned to read that Givens was even considering leaving early.  I said then it was a mistake, that Givens was not nearly mature enough physically or mentally for the NFL.  His play last night, if reviewed by an NFL scout, will tell them all they need to know. 4 outright dropped passes, including the first that elicited the most dramatic show of displeasure I think I have ever seen from Jim Grobe. But another, the most telling, and a moment I am afraid that showed the distance between us and say, an SEC team of any rank…  when #2, on the left sideline, about mid-field, with a 12-yard stop route pass on the money, visablly flinched, pulled back, and turned away from a college corner closing for a hard tackle.  And dropped the ball. Horrible. Embarrasing really.  Not what you expect from a football player.  In the NFL? Where guys like Patrick Peterson play?  Come on Chris. Sadly, It said a lot, about alot of things that worry me at Wake.

I know I’m not alone.  You know the definition of insanity.  Something, some things, need to change.  I really hope so.

Glenn Williams on 12/31/2011 (3:00 pm)

Interesting comment by Grobe after the game. He commented that the offensive line will be more mobile and implied that we may not be disappointed with the line as many think. From watching the games this year our O-line was beaten by faster( and in some cases bigger) d-linemen. he also commented that the defense has a change to be real special.

david on 12/31/2011 (2:43 pm)

I couldn’t agree with you more Dan, but I’d like to add a few thoughts of my own.  Even though the defense gave up those two long TD runs I thought they played well enough to win this game.  However the offense was really disappointing.  The 3-yard pass on 4th & 10 was inexplicable and the last drive was discombobulated and just plain ugly.  It’s one thing for a young QB to have a bad game but for your 20 game starter to play that kind of game in a bowl was also inexplicable.  One thing about Riley, he always played his best in bowl games, even as a redshirt freshman.  Plus Tanner’s mechanics looked askew all game. 

Defensively one of the aspects about our team that is so discouraging is our one corner continues to let his man get 5 yards behind him and he gave up an easy TD again last night.  What’s disheartening is we haven’t seen any improvement from him since he did the same thing in the Syracuse game yet he’s stated every game.  Our undersized defensive line is too often pushed around so hopefully that’ll improve in the spring.

All in all what started as a promising season turned into disappointment.  Hopefully next year we’ll see some improvement .

GO DEACS!

Deac Fan on 12/31/2011 (2:34 pm)

Dan- Is Josh Harris healthy and 100% now? I know Grobe has him returning kickoffs (not very well- I may add), so why is he not getting reps running the ball in the last few games, especially the bowl game after having another month to heal his hamstring?! I know Pendergrass is a senior, but Josh has that threat of a long break-away run! And also with 4 senior starters on the O-line, why did they not protect Tanner better last nite? Not only does Lobo call the same old boring plays, but he is the Offensive Line coach- I know he is not spending time coming up with creative plays, so what is the deal with the O-line being so weak?

Bobby on 12/31/2011 (2:00 pm)