Grobe Shuffles Staff
When Jim Grobe told me he hoped he didn’t see me for awhile, I didn’t take it personally.
I’d just gotten through telling Grobe that I might not make it by spring practice anytime soon and that it would be up to Coach Dino Gaudio and his basketball Deacons when I did. Wake plays Texas on Thursday and I’m absolutely swamped between writing for the paper and this blog and pulling my act together for the trip to New Orleans. And as long as the Deacons keep playing, I’m going to stay swamped. Such is life for a beat guy in March.
“I hope you don’t get out there for a long time,’’ Grobe said.
It was really good talking with Grobe Monday about his team and I’m anxious to get my first look in four years of a Wake Forest football team without Riley Skinner at quarterback. One of the developments I wanted to discuss was why he rearranged his coaching staff since last season.
In case you didn’t catch the story we had in this morning’s Journal, Grobe has changed the responsibilities for six of his nine full-time assistants.
Defensive coordinator Brad Lambert will coach the safeties after coaching linebackers last season; offensive coordinator Steed Lobotzke will add tight ends to his responsibilities as offensive-line coach; Keith Henry will coach the cornerbacks after coaching defensive ends; Steve Russ will coach the linebackers after coaching fullbacks and tight ends; and Tim Billings will coach the defensive ends after coaching the secondary.
I should have noted that Billy Mitchell will add fullbacks to his responsibilities of coaching the running backs, kickers and punters.
Grobe explained that he has a wealth of good defensive coaches—Billings and Russ were defensive coordinators at Marshall and Syracuse and Lambert is entering his third season as the Deacons’ DC—that he wants to take better advantage of.
“Last season I was disappointed that we didn’t play better defense,’’ Grobe said. “I thought at some positions we didn’t get as good of play out of a couple of our players that we should have. And I think, as coaches, you get lulled to sleep sometimes because guys that have done it in the past, you just keep waiting and expecting them to step up and do it again. And when they don’t, I think you take a hard look at yourself as coaches.
“And for me personally as a head coach, I was very concerned that we didn’t play defense as well as we can. Of course we lost some great players. I know we lost (Aaron) Curry and Alphonso (Smith) and some of those guys. But I just felt we didn’t play as well as we were capable of on the defensive side of the ball last year. It’s nobody’s fault in particular, but I think sometimes it’s good to stir things up.
“I think some of our coaches will be coaching more to their strengths. I coached Steve Russ (at Air Force). He’s been a linebacker and a defensive coach his whole career. When we had an opening here, that opening happened to be on the offense and I felt like it would be best for us not to make a lot of changes because I thought we had a lot of talent. So I kept Steve on offense, but I’ve always felt that he needed to be on the defensive side.
“I think some of the coaches, by moving them around, are going to maybe be in better positions to maximize their abilities. With Tim Billings, Steve Russ and Brad Lambert, we’ve got three defensive coordinators on our staff.’‘
By the way, I did have a mistake in today’s article that I regret. The spring game is set for BB&T Field on April 17, and not the Doc Martin Practice Complex on campus. Grobe and everyone seemed so happy with the past few spring games on campus that I got sloppy and assumed it would remain there. My bad.