Spots to Be Won in Wake’s Defense
Jim Grobe didn’t see enough from his defense this spring to form a clear idea of who will start against Presbyterian in the Sept. 2 season opener, but he did see enough to get excited about the start of preseason camp in August.
Competition, he said, should be fierce.
“Especially on the defensive side of the ball, we’ve got a roll of the dice at about five or six positions—and in good way,’’ Grobe said. “A lot of times people say `If you’ve got two at one position, you’ve got none.’ But that’s not our case right now. We’ve got some real battles going on for starting jobs, and I think starters that can win for us—not where you’ve got two backups trying to be a starter, but two really good players. But that’s where we are at defensive end, in the interior D-line and at linebacker. We’ve got a lot of good football players that are battling for snaps right now.’‘
Kevin Smith, a player of rare athletic ability that the staff has been waiting to turn into a college football player, actually started Saturday’s scrimmage at one end in front of Tristan Dorty, the starter last season. The other end appears battened down with the return of Kyle Wilber from a broken leg.
Nobody stirred it up more during the spring than Nikita Whitlock, a redshirt freshman who flourished once he was moved from linebacker to nose guard. He’s probably too small for the position, at 5-11, 245-pounds, but that was little solace for the offensive linemen who had such trouble keeping him out of the backfield.
“We took Nikita Whitlock from stand-up linebacker and put him down at nose guard,’’ Grobe said. “He’s small and he’s a guy they’re having a lot of trouble blocking. He’s hard to get blocked.
“When we recruited him, you know he played nose guard in high school (at Wylie High School in Texas) and he was the state 5-A player of the year in Texas as a nose guard. We were trying to make a linebacker out of him. And when we had some issues in the offensive line—you know we moved four defensive linemen (Steven Chase, Devin Bolling, Antonio Ford and Bryson Dunmeyer) over to the offensive line now. And when we did that we were a little thin on the D-line, so we just said `Hey he’s the state 5-A player in Texas. Why don’t we try him where he played?’ We put him at nose guard and he’s making plays all over the field.
“He might have found a home. He’s not very big but he can play.’‘
Another young player who showed up to play in Saturday’s scrimmage was Justin Jackson, a 6-1, 205-pound redshirt freshman from Richmond County High School.
“The nice thing about Justin is that he’s a linebacker for us, but he runs as fast as any of the defensive backs,’’ Grobe said. “He’s got defensive-back footspeed. He’s really improved from day one until today. He’s one of those young guys that we’re looking at. A lot of young linebackers and a lot of young defensive linemen are guys who are going to mature into some really good players for us.’‘