The Class That Didn’t Last
Marshall Williams, Russ Nenon, Josh Adams, Dennis Godfrey, Alex Frye, Hunter Haynes and Matt Woodlief all took a flying leap of faith five years ago. They had to if they wanted to play for a winning program at Wake Forest. When the seven committed before the 2006 season, the Deacons were coming off three straight losing campaigns of 5-7, 4-7 and 4-7. There was little evidence that the fortunes would soon change, as evidenced by the preseason poll of 2006 that had the Deacons picked last in the Atlantic Division.
What a long, strange trip the seven have had, the full circle of playing in a program that wins the 2006 ACC championship, plays in three straight bowls and now finds itself on a bee-line back to the basement of the ACC. Only by winning two of the final four games against BC, N.C. State, Clemson and Vanderbilt can the Deacons reach the win level of 2004 and 2005. But neither of those teams took the kind of poundings the 2010 Deacons have absorbed. Opponents didn’t have anywhere close to the kind of fun against those teams they’ve had rolling up Pinball-like numbers against the current squad.
The problem with this year’s team is not Williams, Nenon, Adams, Godfrey, Frye, Haynes and/or Woodlief. All are good players who have played some good football at Wake Forest. Adams, as you recall, was the ACC’s Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2007, though he never really came up with a decent encore. Williams has caught 102 passes, 20th most in school history. By finishing strong, he could climb as high as the top 12. And Jim Grobe was bragging on Russ Nenon at this week’s gathering to eat chicken and talk football, saying he’s a really good player having a really good season.
The problem is not those seven, it’s how little in the way of on-field contributions the program has received from anyone else in their recruiting class.
Grobe talked about it extensively Tuesday and Lenox wrote about it for this morning’s Journal. It’s a good read Big Holes to Fill that you really ought to check out if you haven’t gotten around to it.
There were 15 players in the class of 2006—the aforementioned seven plus punter Dan Caldwell, running back Lucas Caparelli, defensive tackle Michael Carter, offensive lineman Cannon Gaskin, quarterback Zach MacDowall, linebacker Tripp Russell, defensive back Marcus Williams and defensive tackle Teddy Tomlin. Russell is a fifth-year senior at Wake who is well-respected on the team for his attitude and work ethic. He’ll leave Wake with a degree in communications with a minor in entrepreneurship and social enterprise. But he’s played in just seven games as a reserve.
The other seven are long gone, scattered to the winds. Caldwell might have indeed been the heir apparent to punter Ryan Plackemeier, but we’ll never know. He returned home to Oxford, Ala. (home of current kicker Jimmy Newman) and, as I heard it, ended up at Auburn, but as a student and not a player. Of the others, Carter could really help this team if he could have kept his grades in order.
I’ve seen the criticism of Grobe that by assessing the lack of contributions from the Class of 2006 he’s making excuses for the trainwreck of 2010. I don’t see it that way. I see it as another way he is owning up to what has happened to the program since the halycon days of 2006-08 when the Deacons were 28-12. He freely admits he and his staff whiffed on this one class in question. It’s up to the staff not to whiff in recruiting.
Bad things happen when you do.