Deacons Off and Jogging
Wake Forest was back on the football field this afternoon and Coach Jim Grobe was back in his sweatshirt. It wasn’t all that hot for me in my T-shirt, but I know it was for him. I just figured it was his method of dropping a couple of pounds, and mentioned I should probably try that strategy as well.
“Coming out here I don’t wear the sweatshirt to lose weight,’’ Grobe said. “These wienies think it’s too hot to practice. When they see an old guy in a sweatshirt like me they say `It can’t be that bad.’ “
The action actually got about as hot as it can get on the first day, with the players in nothing but helmets, shirts, shorts and cleats. After spending most of the practice in position drills, the offense ran plays against the defense for about 15 minutes. No one was tackling anybody, so it was hard to tell who was making plays and who wasn’t. It was more walk-through stuff than anything else.
A healthy crowd that I’d estimate to be around 60-75 showed up to hold up the wall from the front corner of the Pruitt Football Center all the way back to the opening through which the coaches and players pass. Ashby Cook said he should be have been selling lemonade, as much traffic as there was alongside Doc Martin practice field. He could have made a buck or two. The atmosphere was as festive as you would expect for fans of a program coming off its first back-to-back-to-back bowl trips in school history.
As much as I enjoy the excitement of the start of the new season, I’ve learned long ago that really hard news is really hard to come by until the players get into full pads and the competition begins in earnest. As reported earlier, defensive tackle Michael Carter is academically ineligible and his career is over. I caught up with Ray McCartney, the defensive tackles coach, who said he’s confident he’ll be fine with three redshirt seniors, Boo Robinson, John Russell and Michael Lockett backed by a physically impressive redshirt freshman, Ramon Booi. He said he’s also got his eye on a newcomer.
“I’m excited about this true freshman, Frank Souza, that we got,’’ McCartney said, referring to a 6-4, 285-pound defensive tackle from Ponte Vedra, Fla. “I think he’s going to be able to help us.’‘
McCartney said he didn’t envision senior Dominique Midgett, who played three games at defensive tackle last season before moving back to linebacker in the spring, back in his meeting room.
“No, he’ll play a ton of football at linebacker,’’ McCartney said.
Otherwise, Grobe was left to all but apologize for the lack of buzz worthy of headlines.
“I think the thing we’re doing as much as we possibly can, is we’re trying to teach,’’ Grobe said. “I think that’s our big thing. We go back and we work on stance and starts and all those things, just fundamental football right now. We go a couple of days in helmets, so we don’t do any contact. These are great days to teach. It drives assistant coaches crazy because they spend so much time teaching that they don’t really get into the nuts and bolts of things. But once you lay a foundation it makes it so much easier when you do get going.’‘
I mentioned it drove my readers crazy too not to get any juicy tidbits or scoops in the first few breathless days of practice.
“It’s hard to find tidbits right now,’’ Grobe said laughing. “Even the coaches don’t have tidbits right now.’‘