Jim Grobe Is Smarter Than I

This week has proved to me all over again that there is no coach in the nation I'd rather have at Wake Forest than Jim Grobe. We can all disagree with individual choices he may make on the field every once in awhile, but hearing him talk about a loss like he has had to do this week gives me nothing but increased confidence in him.

The issue of the field goal game up again yesterday, apparently when talking directly with Dan Collins of the Winston-Salem Jounal, as the quotes from his article are not in the online excerpts from the weekly press conference (or they just didn't publish these quotes on the official website). Grobe says he told the team “If we had a chance to beat another Top-25 team on the road and Sam had a chance to kick a 47-yard field goal, then we’d just put the field-goal team on the bus and go. We wouldn’t have to take the rest of the team. Go put the ball down, let’s kick it and see if we win."

I just can't argue with that. I might think we could have made it shorter, and Grobe probably would rather have it shorter, but he'd also rather take 47 than risk making it longer. He also pointed out that we had already been sacked twice on the drive, so we hadn't proven we could dominate the drive on every single play. It might not be what I'd do, but I can't strongly disagree with that opinion.

The other issue that has received much discussion this week was not running left to center the ball in the middle of the field. Grobe's reasoning here is once again solid, and in this case not even something I had thought of. "You ought to walk out and stand 47 yards or 50 yards away and stand on the hash that far back, and then walk over four or five yards and see if you think that would make that much difference. When you’re that far out, there’s not much angle there."

Fair enough, Grobe. Fair enough.

I know many of you will still disagree with the decision making, but Grobe clearly had his strategy well thought out, and my football knowledge is not great enough to argue with him.

Those quotes came from Collins' article in today's W-S Journal, which can be found here.

It's time to put this dead horse to rest. I'm done talking about UVa, bring on the Tigers.