Grobe Eyes Comeback Season for Coaches
Coaches, like players, have good games and bad games, and—by extension—good seasons and bad seasons. I’ve seen coaches or managers who I considered to be overmatched at their job have great seasons. And I’ve seen some of the best ever just never get their team together, try as they might.
Jim Grobe is the best Wake Forest football coach I’ve covered. That’s an easy conclusion, given that he’s 59-51 at a school that, before he arrived, lost 60 percent of its games. He built not just some of the best teams to ever represent Wake Forest, but a program that has earned the respect of every coach who has to play it. Georgia Tech, on its march to the ACC title, beat the Deacons in overtime. At home.
But no one has to say that Grobe and his staff had a bad year last year, when the Deacons stumbled to 5-7 and sat out the bowl season for the first time since 2005. That’s because Grobe, himself, will say it for us.
“We start with ourselves, and we could have done a better job,’’ Grobe said. “Honestly, I could have done a better job. Our coaches could have done a better job. We probably could have challenged last year’s team more than we did.’‘
Self-evaluation is only useful when it’s honest. And starting in the spring and continuing right up to tonight’s opener against Presbyterian, Grobe has been more than candid about how he and his staff could have done a better job in 2009. What gnaws on them is they let complacency leak in like rainwater through a loose shingle. And they worked hard all the while trying to make sure every shingle is battened down and snug.
More will be demanded of this year’s team. Of that, Grobe was adamant.
“We probably expected more from last year’s team just because we’d gotten comfortable with seeing top performances out of guys every Saturday,’’ Grobe said. “Sometimes when you take things for granted. . . you find with everybody that you have to demand a certain level of effort and a certain level of performance. If you don’t demand it, you typically don’t get it.
“So I think our players were really disappointed. We were really disappointed as coaches. I think our players expected us to be more demanding (after 2009) and I don’t think we’ve disappointed them. They’ve gotten exactly what they expected. So I think with respect to players and respect to the coaches, we’ve both worked harder this August than we have in the past.
“The thing I will say is I’ve told the players that doesn’t guarantee a thing. Having worked harder only gives you chance to be better. But you’ve got to go make plays. And that’s going to be the bottom line for us. I think we’re very well-conditioned. I think we’re a football team that likes to compete. I feel better about this group – or as good about this group – as any team we’ve had as far as our preparation is concerned. Now it’s a matter of going out and making plays to win games.’‘