Thursday, September 02, 2010

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.’‘

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Adios to Williams and Jones

During preseason camp, cornerbacks D.J. Jones and Michael Williams saw the future of the Wake Forest secondary and it didn’t include them. So neither is still with the team.

Jones. a coveted recruit from Jacksonville who picked Wake over offers from North Carolina, Florida State, Indiana and South Florida, left school on Aug. 24, the day before the fall semester began. He planned to transfer to another program but Coach Jim Grobe said today he wasn’t sure where. By not starting fall semester, he’ll have to sit out just one year to regain his eligibility at another NCAA Division I program.

“He was not in the mix for playing time, so he decided to transfer,’’ Grobe said.

Williams, a redshirt junior from Melbourne, Fla. who also turned down FSU to play at Wake, played in 13 games at Wake Forest, and started the first four of 2009 before Kenny Okoro settled into the starting lineup. Grobe said Williams has remained in school.

“He’s going to concentrate on academics and he can graduate this year,’’ Grobe said. “I think he was disappointed he wasn’t in the mix and didn’t see himself getting in the mix anytime soon.’‘

Both read the handwriting on the wall by reading the daily depth chart that had them playing behind at least two first-year freshman, A.J. Marshall and Kevin Johnson and possibly even a third, Merrill “Bud” Noel. Marshall and Johnson are listed second team going into tomorrow’s opener behind Josh Bush and Okoro.

“It obviously doesn’t sit well with the older guys when the younger guys get on the field,’’ Grobe said. “That’s when it becomes a problem.’’

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Chat with Journal Writers Scheduled for Wednesday

Just got word as I’m sitting here in the Miller Center waiting on football practice to start that Ramon Booi has moved ahead of Frank Souza and is expected to start at defensive tackle against Presbyterian in Thursday’s season opener. Booi was running third team as recently as 10 days ago, so he has really made a move. Also my notebook is overflowing from all kinds of information from the press conference earlier today.

So if you want to discuss any of this juicy stuff, I’d like to extend an invitation to join the chat we have scheduled for 2 p.m. Wednesday. Three of us from the Journal sports staff, Bill Cole, Tommy Bowman and I will be participating.. BC will discuss the impact of the industrial revolution on 19th century American society, Tommy B will address global warming and I will monitor the debate of who was the greater scientist, Newton or Einstein. Of course, you know better. Actually BC will field questions about football played by the three ACC teams in the Triangle, Duke, UNC and N.C. State, Tommy will deal with Appalachian State and I’ll be glad to discuss anything pertaining to either Wake Forest or Hank Williams.

To be a part of this thing, just check in at http://www.journalnow.com and you’ll be directed to the right link. Hope to talk with you tomorrow.

Tuesday Tailgate with Grobe

We gathered today to eat chicken and talk football with Jim Grobe.

To paraphrase Bobby Bare, a great country singer, ``Chicken Every Tuesday, Mama, and Everything’s All Right.’’  Chicken Every Sunday

Grobe was in fine form, as he usually is. He likes chicken as much as the rest of us. He also doesn’t mind talking about his team to the likes of us media types, so these are some of the best press conferences I’ve never had the privilege of covering. Grobe rarely dodges a question, and when he does it probably says more than any answer he could give. He didn’t dodge anything today, but instead talked about how he arrived at starting Ted Stachitas at quarterback, Tanner Price’s chances of playing, the reasons he expects Presbyterian to be better than a year ago, the concerns he still has about the Deacons kicking game, the need to force turnovers like the Deacons did in 2008 but didn’t in 2009 and how two first-year freshmen. A.J. Marshall and Kevin Johnson ended up second team at cornereback with every expectation that both will play on Thursday.

He was done, or thought he was, when I threw out one last question to go.

“What players are we going to be talking about next week that noboby mentioned today?’’ I asked.“Who is really going to surprise us?

“Well good or bad?’’ he replied. “It could be a good surprise or a not-so-good surprise.’‘

Either one, I wondered.

“I’ll tell you, it’s going to be one of these young kids,’’ Grobe said. “It’s going to be one of these young kids who have been practicing really good. One of them will get out under the lights and eleveate his game and we’ll probably have a couple that will disappoint. With young guys that’s usually the way it is.

“We’ve tried to work hard enough and go against each other enough that if they go out and pin their ears back Thursday night they ought to be fine. I think a guy like (Michael) Campanaro might be doing some good things for us. A kid like Josh Harris might do some good things for us. Nikita Whitlock. Certainly we’re hopeful Daniel Mack will do some good things for us, and Duran Lowe and a couple of those freshmen corners. If you’re just looking at freshmen, all those kids could go out and impress us Thursday night. You could see a few good plays out of (Justin Jackson). Justin could be out there doing some good things.

“There are a whole laundry list of freshmen that have the ability to make plays and do some good stuff. It’ll be fun to watch.

“I think. I hope.’‘

Monday, August 30, 2010

Wake Forest Beat: Living the Dream

I had a good preseason camp. Not as good maybe as that of Michael Campanaro, Nikita Whitlock, Josh Harris or Tanner Price but it was a good one.

And it should have been. If there’s a team easier to cover than one coached by Jim Grobe, I’ve yet to run across it. Figuring out exactly when practices are to commence can be a chore. I arrived tonight for what I thought was to be an 8 p.m. practice, and the Deacons had been going at it since 6:45. But once you do make it, you’re always glad you did.

The depth chart released today had the same starting lineup I posted on MTOW on Thursday. That says two things; I went to a lot of practices and I talked to people when I did.

But the fact I was allowed to go to practices and get the opportunity to talk to the players and coaches every time I did says more about Grobe and the program he coaches—not to mention the first-rate media relations department directed by Steve Shutt—than it does about me. Beat writers for other programs who have to put up with limited access and contemptuous coaches can’t believe how good I’ve got it. Have to say, I’m lucky. But so are you, the readers.

By taking care of me, Grobe takes of you guys as well.

Everybody wins.

Going to School on Presbyterian

When Tulane talked its way out of playing Wake in football only a month before the 2010 schedule was released Jim Grobe was in a bind. But it could have been worse.

Because the Deacons didn’t already have an opponent from the NCAA’s championship subdivision (formerly I-AA) on the schedule, they could scour the full list of both FCS and FBS opponents for a replacement. A team doesn’t want two FCS teams on a schedule—as Duke seemed to realize about halfway through last year’s campaign—because it can, at best, count a victory over just one toward bowl eligibility.

The team Wake found, Presbyterian, is in its fourth year of transition from Division II to FCS. The Blue Hose were dreadful last season when they went 0-11 while giving up 40.1 points a game. They lost the final three of 2008, which means they’ll be riding a 14-game losing streak into BB&T Field on Thursday. And they were picked by the media to finish seventh in the seven-team Big South Conference.

Harold Nichols, the head coach, graduated from Presbyterian in 1989, was an assistant there from 1996 through 1998 and served as the offensive coordinator at Rhode Island and Bucknell before returning to PC as head coach in 2009. He has 16 starters—nine on offense and seven on defense—returning for his second season. One is Brandon Miley, a junior quarterback from Wilmington who completed 151 of 276 passes for 1,736 yards and 11 touchdowns, and was picked off 16 times. The best running back, sophomore Lance Byrd, gained 700 yards on 127 carries.

Before I turned my sights on this Thursday’s game, I knew next-to-nothing about Presbyterian or the brand of football the school plays. Now I know a bit more, including:

Presbyterian is located in Clinton, S.C.

It’s private.

The colors are Garnet and Blue.

The mascot is a Scotsman.

The school was founded in 1880.

The current enrollment is around 1,200.

The endowment of around $100 million is easily second highest in the Big South, after VMI.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Weight Down, Woody Back Up

Almost all the football players who play for Wake Forest have been easy to get to know, but with Matt Woodlief it’s been easier than most.

Woody, as he’s known to coaches and teammates, is a friendly kind of guy who will look you straight in the eye and shake your hand. And because we both hail from the western part of the state—he’s from Catawba and I’m from much further west, Franklin—we speak a common language. So I was a little bit concerned when he fell from the coaching staff’s good graces in the spring and appeared ready to be put out to pasture for his final season.

Even in his best form, the 5-11 Woodlief is not the fastest linebacker on the roster. And in the spring, Woodlief was not in his best form when his weight soared to 260 pounds.

“Woody got into this mentality—and most linebackers have it—that to be tougher, you need to be bigger,’’ Grobe said. “He really worked in the weight room and got bigger, but he got too big weight-wise. So this spring, he was a step away from making a lot of plays because he just couldn’t get there. So Coach (Steve) Russ just told him `You’ve got to come back lighter.’ ‘’

All it took was a glance at the depth and talent—much of it young talent—that the Deacons have at linebacker to see the challenge Woodlief faced. And over the first few weeks of preseason I saw a great deal of such players as Justin Jackson and Joey Ehrmann and Scott Betros and Riley Haynes and Mike Olson and even freshman Zachary Allen, but I didn’t see that many reps from Woodlief.

My concern proved unfounded, for I apparently wasn’t looking at the right times.

But Grobe was. Woodlief started the third and final scrimmage with Hunter Haynes still sidelined with a concussion, and Grobe said that Woodlief is primed to play a great deal of football this fall.

“Woody, of our returning players, has maybe been the surprise of the fall camp,” Grobe said. “He made a commitment to get his weight down, so he’s become a guy now who can make plays all over the field. He’s making them sideline to sideline. He’s very well-conditioned right now. He’s just a much better player.

“So he’s gone from being a guy who we originally saw as somewhat in a backup role, to being a key guy again.’‘

Grobe said that unless things change between now and Thursday Hunter Haynes will probably start at middle linebacker with Riley Haynes on one side and Ehrmann on the other. But Grobe envisions a deep rotation with plenty of contributions from Woodlief, Betros, Jackson and Lee Malchow. Grobe likes what he has seen from Olson, though, as a redshirt freshman, he might be a year away from major minutes. And Grobe also has been impressed this August with Kyle Jarrett, a junior from West Forsyth High School who is battling to crack the substitute rotation for the first time in his career.

One player who’ll likely have to wait his time is Allen, who, along with cornerback Merrill “Bud” Noel and offensive lineman Antonio Ford, is from Pahokee, Fla., the same hometown as Alphonso Smith, Demir Boldin and Antonio Wilson. Allen arrived somewhat undersized at around 190 pounds, but much like Aaron Curry before him, packed on pounds in a hurry. Allen said Friday that he’s 30 pounds heavier than he was when he enrolled in January.

But the reason he was able to tell me that was he was sitting out practice with an injured shoulder. All freshmen have a hurdle to clear to play in their first year, and Grobe said the injury would probably convince the staff to put Allen on the redshirt shelf to preserve his season of eligibility.

Friday, August 27, 2010

Separating Redshirt Facts from Fallacies

The redshirt rule in college football is far simpler than many seem to realize.

A player gets four seasons of eligibility over a five-season period. Period.

A player plays his first season, and that leaves him with three seasons of eligibility over a four-year period.

The NCAA requires no commitment date. Play a player on the last play of a season and that counts as a season of participation. Coaches often go deep into a season still deliberating on whether to play a first-year freshman or preserve his season of eligibility. If you remember, Jordan Williams, in 2007, sat out the first six games of his first season before Coach Jim Grobe decided he needed another receiver enough to burn Williams’ shirt. But because Williams has played three seasons over three seasons, he could, if he wanted, redshirt this season and return in 2011. Nobody has mentioned the possibility. That’s just how the rule works.

That’s how De’Angelo Bryant was able to save his sophomore season after he got hurt in preseason camp. And that’s how Chris DeGeare was able to sit out his first senior season while academically ineligible and return to play last season. Both played their first season at Wake.

The confusion apparently comes from those who equate the redshirt rule with the medical hardship rule. They’re two different rules. A player can apply to regain eligibility for a certain season if he’s injured badly enough early that he basically loses that season. The NCAA makes that ruling, and as we were reminded in the Ben Mauk situation, it requires documentation.

This post was prompted by the questions of a member of our Peanut Gallery named ncbrian, who also wanted to know if Grobe has made any final decisions on which first-year freshmen will play this season. Even if he has, he could change his mind by Thursday’s opener against Presbyterian. But from talking with him after yesterday’s scrimmage, I got the sense that at least two of the freshmen cornerbacks are being counted on for this year, and right now both A.J. Marshall and Kevin Johnson appear ahead of Merrill “Bud” Noel. Tanner Price is running second-team quarterback, which I take to mean that he’s next up if Ted Stachitas doesn’t give Grobe the play he wants from a quarterback. Now if the Deacons go deeper into the season with Price having not played, the percentages and the considerations will change.

Daniel Vogelsang was in the rotation at defensive tackle, but he broke his hand earlier this week and may not be back for Presbyterian. We’ll have to see how quickly he comes back and how badly Coach Ray McCartney, who coaches the defensive tackles, feels he needs another body in the mix. And Grobe has been really excited about linebacker Zachary Allen, who like Vogelsang, arrived in January and thus had the benefit of spring practice. But Allen’s problem is not how he’s playing, but how the six or seven older and more experienced linebackers ahead of him on the depth chart are playing.

Before he injured his knee earlier this week, Dylan Heartsill was battling with redshirt freshman Devin Bolling for second-team tackle behind Doug Weaver. My guess is that if the line doesn’t experience serious problems and upheaval, Heartsill will redshirt.

Injuries affect depth charts, and there may be a hole open up that Grobe and his staff decide to fill with a freshman. Otherwise, I think the best bets to play this season are Marshall, Johnson, Price and Vogelsang.

A Pat on the Back to Scott Strickland

Scott Strickland didn’t go to Wake Forest, and neither did his grandfather. But that didn’t keep his grandfather, Hugh Strickland, from buying Wake basketball season tickets for decades and over one record-setting stretch, attending 339 straight games. I devoted a chapter in my book Tales from the Wake Forest Hardwood to Hugh, who had to be one of the staunchest friends any program has ever had. In Hugh’s declining days, Coach Dave Odom even offered to swing the team bus by the Strickland home to pick Hugh up for trips.

Scott’s father, Gary Strickland, did attend Wake Forest, and he graduated in or around 1973. Gary has been the scorekeeper for the basketball program for 29 years, so I know him pretty well. I couldn’t help it if I wanted to. Actually we’re close friends and we’ve had more than our share of laughs together since I came to town in 1978. I’ve known his sons, David, Michael and Scott pretty much from birth and Gary coached my son, Nate, in baseball.

So it’s with great pride that I mention the accomplishment of one member of the extended Wake Forest family. Scott Strickland is the head groundskeeper of the Durham Bulls, and he’s good at what he does. He’s so good, in fact, that Wednesday he was awarded the honor of 2010 Turf Manager of the Year in the International League. It’s voted on by the managers who watch their teams play from ground level, so it’s a bona fide accomplishment. He’s the first groundskeeper of the Bulls to win the honor since 1998, and he’ll now be up for the honor as Turf Manager of the Year in the entire AAA classification of professional baseball.

Congratulations Scott. I know I’m not the only one from your hometown who is proud of you.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Setting A Lineup in Stone

Jim Grobe saw his team today and what he saw really didn’t surprise him.

My story in tomorrow’s Journal will go into more detail, but Grobe said had a pretty good idea of what he was going to see in today’s final scrimmage. His decision to stop scrimmage after barely an hour was confirmation. Grobe, as head coach, can obviously be swayed by what a position coach is telling him, but the team he saw even before the scrimmage began was:
DE—Kyle Wilber, Tristan Dorty.
DT—Frank Souza, Nikita Whitlock.
LB—Hunter Haynes, Riley Haynes, Joey Ehrmann.
S— Cyhl Quarles and Daniel Mack.
CB—Josh Bush and Kenny Okoro.

LT—Dennis Godfrey.
LG—Joe Looney.
C—Russ Nenon.
RG—Michael Hoag.
RT—Doug Weaver.
TE—Andrew Parker.
QB—Ted Stachitas.

I didn’t really get into the starters in the backfield or at wideout with him because I know that often is dependent on formations and situations, and that a rotation is far more indicative of a team’s strength or weakness than a set starting designation. But I’d be surprised if Marshall Williams is not starting at one wide out and Devon Brown the other, with Josh Adams at tailback and Tommy Bohanon at fullback.

The positions that I took to be most up in the air are at safety, where Alex Frye could still end up starting instead of Mack, and maybe at linebacker where Grobe is really enthusiastic about his depth and talent. And though Whitlock started today’s practice, and has been running first team for at least a few days now, he’s probably going to have to nail it down as the week plays out. But he’ll certainly play. What was envisioned as a six-man rotation has been whittled, at least temporarily, to four. Redshirt freshman John Gallagher is out with what is thought to be mononucleosis, and Daniel Vogelsang had surgery today for a hand he broke earlier this week. Regardless of the starting pair, Souza, Whitlock, Ramon Booi and Kris Redding will all get their chance to shine in next week’s opener.

The real story at quarterback is not that Ted Stachitas has been penciled in as starter. He has great high school credentials. He’s had two full years in the program. He’s a versatile quarterback who can run and pass. In hindsight, he should have been the next guy up after Riley Skinner departed. It’s just that until now, none of us had any idea of what to expect because he had never been injury-free long enough to show us.

The juicier development, though, is that as we sit here a week before the first game, Tanner Price, a freshman who at this time last year was just starting his senior season at Westlake High School in Austin,  is still in the picture. Price looked good again today, and Grobe was paying attention. Unless I misread Grobe, whatever heat Stachitas is getting is coming from a first-year freshman. Obviously no one is measuring Price for a redshirt just yet.