Flat Deacons Get Flattened
The last face plant I saw as bad as Wake’s 41-7 loss to Vanderbilt today was mine last season after the loss to Boston College, when I tripped over the threshold walking into the upstairs of Bridger Field House, landed on the back of a chair and knocked myself even sillier than usual.
But as my friend Bob Sutton of the Burlington Times- News pointed out, the difference was I got back up and wrote my story. The Deacons, once they fell behind the Commodores 20-7 on Jordan Rodgers’ 73 yard touchdown pass to maybe the most open receiver in Brandon Barden that I’ve ever seen, were done for the day.
When asked earlier in the week if the Deacons would be satisfied from having already clinching a bowl trip, coach Jim Grobe said we would all find out today at kickoff.
Did we ever?
“I think its going to be real hard for us to go back and find any individual players that are going to feel like they played their best football tonight,’’ Grobe said. “And that starts with us.
“I don’t ever want to take the responsibility away from the coaches because it starts with us.’‘
But it doesn’t end there, as Grobe noted earlier in the post-game. It’s also up to the players to get themselves ready, even when its a holiday week after a emotional win while playing against a team, in Vanderbilt, that had to win to save its season by reaching a bowl. And as poorly as the Deacons played, to their credit they acknowledged that they had not gotten themselves emotionally ready to play.
“We were supposedly playing for a better bowl,’’ nose guard Nikita Whitlock said. “But do I think we played for anything? I don’t think we did. I don’t think we came out playing. This game was parallel to so many games throughout the year that we lost, UNC, Virginia Tech. It felt just like those games where we played really bad and they played really good.
“They really came out and you could see that they were hungry. And you could tell that we weren’t satisfied, but we had had our first helping. We weren’t full. But we’d had our first plate.
“That’s how it felt.’‘
Chris Givens, who rolled his ankle early but gutted it out to catch four passes for 69 yards, was in no mood to celebrate the accomplishment of passing Peter Warrick of Florida State and Marcus Badgett of Maryland for fourth most receiving yards in an ACC season. Givens, who set the Wake Forest record last week, has 1,276 going into the bowl game.
“They were hungrier than we were,’’ Givens said. “For some reason we were just content on being in a bowl game and being 6-5 and all that stuff.
“We came out and showed it today. We really didn’t play with any intensity or enthusiasm.’‘
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By Dan Collins on 11/26/2011 (9:55 pm)
Comments
I wonder if Wellman saw the last basketball and football games? If he did I hope he learned that changes have to be made for the sake of everbody &everything;. Wake looked;played and acted with no enthusiasm at all.The excuses are like a broken record and nothing seems to be done about the horrible attitude taken. How can the students and fans support teams that have such little coaching ability?
JACK MAC DONALD on 11/27/2011 (5:45 pm)
Deac Fan is “right on” in describing that sometime Coach Grobe is going to have to take full responsibility for his players not showing up to play. They came out against Vandy, UNC (Rival game), and Notre Dame (2nd half) with absoulutely NO emotion or desire! Over the last 3 years, Grobe with his 2.4 Million salary, he has made $185,000 per victory! His average winning percentage is:36% (13 wins out of 36 games). He has to be the highest paid Coach per win in America, and he said, the players have to motivate themselves, and when we lose, “it is because we are playing really good football temas” as the excuse?!! WF has the talent to beat FSU and should have beaten Clemson, and yet they play with NO emotion or heart when a better bowl bid and a possible 8 win season is on the line. Grobe is satisfied with 6 wins because he looks like a “hero” to Wellman” to be bowl eligible, and so the players follow their Coach’s attitude and that is what we saw against Vandy. Grobe never talks to his players during games, and that is strange not for him to give them encouragement or to get them fired up on the sidelines as all great coaches do! Shreveport will look like BB&T field did yesterday with a sparse crowd, because Wake fans knew Nashville or Charlotte was likely with a “W” against Vandy!
Bobby on 11/27/2011 (12:20 pm)
How embarrasing!!!I was proud of Wulfeck, he had another great game. Dan, you really need to ackowledge his efforts.
stan on 11/27/2011 (12:18 pm)
If it were not for the women’s soccer team, this weekend could have gone down in perhaps the most embarrassing weekend in Wake history. It’s not because of losing, it how both the men’s basketball and football teams lost. I saw no passion, no focus in either teams. In all sports there are wins and loses, but one should never lose passion, focus, courage, heart. I was embarrassed. Please, please learn from this mistake and never let it happen again.
FTLFL1900 on 11/27/2011 (12:00 pm)
You keep saying that bowl eligibility equals bowl bid. Are you sure?
Arciel on 11/27/2011 (11:17 am)
Someone should have told the Deacs their season ended this weekend not last weekend. I think both the coaches and the players were so focused on six wins that they literally took a huge sigh of relief after the Maryland game and simply couldn’t regroup for Vanderbilt. That’s not an excuse, simply my opinion of what happened.
That being said Coach Grobe is right, the players have to be self-motivated. As Chuck Noll used to tell his Steeler teams back in the day, “If I have to motivate you to play this game I don’t want you on my team”. However, you have to take into account these are 18 – 22 year old college kids so the coaches have to do some motivating. The last thing we want to see is the coaching staff calling out the players without any culpability of their own.
One thing that continues to confound me is the total lack of communication between Coach Grobe and his players during the game. Tanner came off the field so many times looking frustrated and eventually defeated, walked right past Coach Grobe without making eye contact, walked over to the bench and put his headset on. Shouldn’t something be communicated between the head coach and his QB? To me that’s inexplicable. Here’s hoping that changes in the near future.
Let’s all hope we can show the country the kind of team we are in whatever bowl game we play in.
GO DEACS!
Deac Fan on 11/27/2011 (10:50 am)
Maybe some other people will start listening to me when I say that Wellman should be ashamed of the football performance period. Grobe gets paid $2.4 million a year for this!! He is way overpaid for insulting the fans and students. They looked like a bunch of misfits against Vandy. All we get is excuses and more excuses. Thay can compete with many teams in the ACC andit’s only going to get worse year after year with new teams added. Wake should evaluate the football situation from the top to the bottom and make good changes now. Wellmn and the President should definitely be involved. You can’t compete with the big boys when you can’t even walk the talk.
jack mac on 11/27/2011 (9:59 am)
I hope the players and coaches spent their week doing constructive things like estate planning and writing term papers. I would have to think they spent their time practicing and game planning for what they did last night.
John Sanders on 11/27/2011 (9:32 am)
mediocrity achieved..6 and 6..Greobe and staff met their goals—and the players must know that is all that is expected..The only bowl deserved after that effort, is the toilet bowl..You play for pride, your fans, and your school. Changes are needed at the top.
beachdeac on 11/27/2011 (9:20 am)
Wake will most likely get a bowl game, but they don’t deserve one. One win and 4 losses down the stretch including yesterday’s disaster at home doesn’t look very appealing to a bowl committee. BB&T field is an awesome facility to see but it never seems to be a real positive factor in how Wake performs. Even during the championship year of ‘06 both of Wake’s regular season losses came at home yet they were undefeated on the road. It would be great if BB&T Field would become a place the competition feared.
Coach Grobe is a hot and cold coach, sometimes he looks like a coaching genius and sometimes it seems he doesn’t have a clue how to prepare his team.
av8r on 11/27/2011 (8:39 am)
The game was not on TV where I live, just as well. If there is a silver lining, I saw a “Bowl Line-up Predictions” column last week that had WF playing Boise State. I thought oh no, that’s a horrible match-up for the Deacons! Now I would say that is highly unlikely. They’ll get some bottom of the barrel bowl vs. another mediocre team from another BCS conference, a game they should have a chance of winning. So it goes in college football and the corrupt and indefensible bowl system. In my opinion, a 6-6 team’s season should be over at the end of the regular season. But given the way it is, it would be nice to see WF get a comparable foe in a bowl, and end the season with a W.
Charles on 11/27/2011 (8:22 am)
Wake should get much more from a coach that makes $3,000,000 a year!
av8r on 11/27/2011 (8:10 am)
That was soooo BAD!!! I was hoping their bowl game would be in Charlotte, this was just such a let down. Once again we hear the same reasons. Is there no coaching during halftime? I guess it is ok to not play well for almost half the season. Defense sucked, offense sucked, I just thought they were on the right track. I am afraid to think about next season, after 12(?)seniors are gone. To be fair the Wake fans suck!! Maybe we get what we put into the team. How many people were at this game? Not that ‘bs’ ticket sales number, how many people were at the game?It was the last home game of the season. Sad. I thought they have had enough of losing. Why bother to watch the bowl game? Will probably be another embarrasment. Embarrassed, the right word for this game. It looked like they gave up. Vil ran on and off the field Wake mosied on and off the field like they were somebody. Such a bad taste in my mouth to last the whole winter. There is always next year. GO DEACS!!!
HarryC on 11/27/2011 (12:00 am)
Dan, I have seen it all now. The Coaches failed and the players failed. They had about as most emotion as a Turtle. How can Coaches earn as much money as they do and do such a poor job of preparation. They should consider not going to a Bowl.It is a pitiful example od WF football.
Cal on 11/26/2011 (11:36 pm)
Well!, what a disaster.I sat thru almost 3 qtrs and that was all I could stand.Coach G should give Alex Wulfeck a helmet sticker as he had his best night this season with 7 punts for a +43 yrd. avg.. I’ve heard the quote, “players play and coaches coach” and as far as the Deacs, neither one happened last night. Sad, really sad. That performance was unacceptable by any measure. Coach says he wants to run the ball, well Mr. Pendergrass had 74 yrds. on 12 carries for a 6.2 avg. why not 25 carries instead of passes over the middle into double and triple coverage when Vandy clearly couldn’t stop the run?.I saw the last 6 minutes of the contest,(I dont think I can call it that ‘cause the squad, players and coaches didn’t show up) and when the broadcast team use a word such as merciful to descibe the clock hitting 00:00 you know it’s not a good night. Good night coaching staff and just remember nothing say’s “the holiday’s”, like Shreveport in December.
glennard on 11/26/2011 (11:29 pm)
What a compete embarrasment. I’m sure the scouts for the Belk Bowl in Charlotte were impressed.
Dano on 11/26/2011 (10:39 pm)
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