Clean-Up at Wake Forest

This week’s takeaways from Wake Forest’s escape in week one are not much different from what they were right after the game Friday night. Head coach Jake Dickert met with the media on Monday, having watched the game film. His takeaway was the coach’s line; A win is a win. But more importantly, there is a lot that needs to be cleaned up quickly. “The laundry list of cleaning up is really big,” Dickert said.

Clean-Up at Wake Forest

What’s Up?

The Demon Deacons are at home Saturday afternoon against Western Carolina. The Catamounts got beat 52-45 by Gardener-Webb last weekend. Don’t let that lull you into complacency. WCU was missing FCS All-American running back Taron Dickens. He was not injured. And the only statement school officials were willing to make this week was that he is still on the active roster, but was not available to play last Saturday. And this week? It is very TBD.

The status of Wake Forest running back Demond Claiborne is the same…very TBD. He had three carries last weekend before leaving with an injury. He came back later to try one more carry but was doubled over in pain on the sidelines. After considerable time in the locker room and the sideline tent, he reappeared with a huge ice pack on the left side of his midsection, just above the waist. Wake doesn’t comment on injury specifics, but feel free to draw your own WebMD-based conclusions.

Clean Up

“I really, after digesting the tape, feel similar to the way I did after the game,” Dickert said Monday. “We found a pathway to win it.” He said some teams, when stretched the way Wake was, find ways to lose. Still, the 10-9 win is not going to go down in anyone’s memory banks as a keeper.

The offense was rather pedestrian, particularly without Claiborne. Quarterback Robby Ashford was 20 of 28 passing for 218 yards. He also accounted for Wake’s only touchdown of the night on a five-yard run. And while the 71% completion rate is nice, the offense averaged just over seven yards per completion, again showing little ability to go downfield.

The Deacs rushed for only 130 yards, with Ashford leading the way with 42 yards on 18 carries. As a team, Wake averaged all of 2.8 yards per carry.

Setting the Standard

So, for Dickert, what is needed in the cleanup? As to the offense, he said, “Just not up to the standard of the way we need to play football.” He also set the offensive line never really controlled or reset the line of scrimmage, obviously hampering any concept of a run game.

Depth on the offensive line gets a little thinner this week. Clint Richards broke his foot near the end of the game and will be out for an extended period of time. By the way, he finished the last few plays of the game, broken foot and all.

Controlling What You Can Control

Dickert said some of the things Kennesaw State did on defense caused Wake to hesitate on offense. “Hesitation kills performance,” he proclaimed. “There were times when we got there and we didn’t keep through like we needed to do.” Dickert said that is about attitude and team identity. “Things that we can control need to be better.”

Some of those controllable things were an excessive number of penalties. Dickert said the tape shows Wake offensive linemen holding, with their hands clearly out of position. He said the team as a whole, but the offense in particular, needs to learn to trust their technique.

Responsibility for Everyone

The elements to be cleaned apparently include the coach himself. Dickert was asked about the offense without Claiborne. “That’s where I need to do better personally,” he said. “We didn’t adjust fast enough on our plan without Demond.” He said the offense needs to be just as aggressive regardless of who is the running back and make the push downfield. “We can’t be afraid of second and 10.”

To get there, he is going to need more command from Ashford. Some of the stats were viable. But there was also the second half play where on third down, he scrambled out of the pocket, but went out of bounds a half yard short of the first down. “To me, it’s situation awareness,” Dickert said. “That’s not a learn [just] for Robby. That’s a learn for everyone carrying the ball.”

Dickert said there were plenty of good plays to highlight to the team in film study. What was missing, he said, was stringing several of them together.

Later this week, we will take a deeper look at Western Carolina and the match-up.