Another week, another blogpoll ballot. To be honest, I don't quite know what to do with this right now - just not enough data, so fill free to give me a piece of your mind. Except for Oklahoma at #1. It's not changing until they lose or I have an incredibly compelling reason to change it. So basically, until they lose. Let it go (Kyle).

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Oklahoma	--
2	Southern Cal	--
3	Georgia	--
4	Florida	--
5	Ohio State	--
6	Missouri	--
7	LSU	--
8	Auburn	--
9	Texas	--
10	Alabama	--
11	East Carolina	14
12	Wisconsin	1
13	Oregon	1
14	Wake Forest	--
15	Texas Tech	--
16	Kansas	2
17	Arizona State	--
18	South Florida	1
19	Utah	1
20	Florida State	1
21	Brigham Young	5
22	California	1
23	Penn State	3
24	UCLA	--
25	Fresno State	1

Dropped Out: West Virginia (#13), South Carolina (#22).

In other news, Riley Skinner and Sam Swank were both players of the week. Good stuff - not that I'm surprised.

Jim Grobe is apparently in Bristol today doing various things with ESPN. I guess with the bye week and the day off tomorrow he has time for that type of thing. Should be great for some publicity. He'll be doing a live chat at 12:30 if you want to participate in that.

Game times are out for week 4. Wake will play FSU at 7:00 p.m. on ESPN2. I'm interested to hear your opinions on playing down there in a night game. I guess it worked well last time. Anyone going? I'm trying to decide if I am or not.

Only seen one news link: The defense isn't satisified with their performance. Glad to hear that. I'm sure they'll bring it at FSU.

It's a bye week so we've got some time to kill. If I get a couple hours to spend breaking down the film I'll try to do that. I'm sure we'll come up with something.

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From a fan’s perspective, yesterday’s 30-28 win over Ole Miss had plenty of emotional highs and lows. The game started on a high note when Wake recovered a muffed punt (I guess it just hit someone in the head, but I think it’s still technically a “muff”) and scored a quick touchdown. Unfortunately, the feeling didn’t last as Ole Miss scored 14 unanswered points and took a 14-10 lead into halftime.

The third quarter brought back some good feelings; with Wake scoring 10 points and taking a 20-14 lead into the fourth quarter. The fourth was one of the more nerve-racking quarters of Wake Forest football I’ve ever witnessed, including some pretty terrible moments (Alphonso Smith’s fumble on punt return, phantom pass interference call) to some incredible ones (Pendergrass TD, Sam Swank’s 41 yard game-winning field goal).

It wasn’t looking good when the Rebels scored a touchdown with only 1:01 left on the clock, but Riley Skinner, Sam Swank, and the rest of the Demon Deacons weren’t ready to throw in the towel. The offense moved the ball efficiently, completing two short passes on the sideline to conserve clock before finding D.J. Boldin wide open down the middle for 22 yards. Several plays later (and a heads up timeout call by holder Ryan McManus when the play clock was about to run out) Sam Swank drilled a 41 yard field goal, leading wake to a 30-28 victory.

The final statistics reveal some not-so-good things, but ultimately it’s the score on the board that counts. Ole Miss’s offense out-produced Wake’s—360 yards to 348—and did so in 12 fewer plays than Wake. They outgained Wake 107-81 on the ground and came close in the air (253-267) on 11 fewer plays. Ole Miss also sacked Skinner four times, but Wake’s two interceptions and one fumble recovery (Ole Miss only had a fumble recovery) won the turnover battle.

On the ground Brandon Pendergrass had 49 yards on 8 carries, including two great runs in the third quarter that led to his touchdown. Josh Adams only gained 43 yards on 12 carries. Riley Skinner was 32 of 43 through the air for 267 yards, two touchdowns, and no interceptions. D.J. Boldin had 11 catches for 123 yards, while Marshall Williams and Kevin Harris both had touchdown receptions.

The team Ole Miss put on the field yesterday was much more impressive than the one I expected to see. Jevan Snead is a very good young quarterback with a bright future, and the Rebels have several talented receivers. Their defense, which supposedly has been decimated by injuries, still gave the offense fits, sacking Skinner four times and causing heavy disruption to Wake’s running attack. Houston Nutt is clearly a good coach who has the program moving in a positive direction. In many ways Ole Miss out-played Wake yesterday, but turnovers, penalties, and the “clutch-ness” of Riley Skinner and Sam Swank proved to be too much. They’re going to win some SEC games this year and I think Wake fans are happy they aren’t on schedule again anytime soon.

As for Wake, a win is a win and there shouldn’t be too much complaining, but clearly there is work to be done. I saw a lot of improvement in the second half after a very rough first half, but the Deacs still need to find a way to move the ball on the ground and the defense didn’t have a great performance

I want to talk briefly about the decisions to kick PAT’s instead of going for two after both second half touchdowns. The first one, after the third quarter touchdown, was an absolute no-brainer. In the third quarter of the game in that situation there’s no way it makes sense to go for two. When Wake scored again with 11:37 left in the fourth quarter and again kicked the PAT I heard a lot of people second guessing the decision. I, however, agree with the decision all the way. At that point it was likely Ole Miss would have the ball two more times. Had Wake missed the two point conversion, two field goals would have won the game. Furthermore, with a missed conversion Wake would have been leading by five, 26-21. If things played out the way they did and Ole Miss scored a touchdown with 1:01 left then they’re up 27-26 and have an absolute no-brainer to go for two. If they make the conversion Ole Miss is leading by three, 29-26, and when Wake drives down and makes a field goal it sends the game into overtime instead of to the final whistle and a Wake victory. I think a lot of people are neglecting that side of the equation when they evaluate the decision. I know Jim Grobe said afterwards that he had been second guessing the decision, which is totally understandable, but you have to look at all sides and all possible outcomes and realize that the decision definitely wasn’t a bad one. I’m not saying it would have been wrong to go for two, but kicking the PAT wasn’t wrong either.

Sam Swank deserves to be mentioned again for a great game. Three field goals, including a game winner, and three extra points is a great day from a guy who definitely should be on his way to an All-American season.

Finally, let’s take a look at the questions I asked in the game preview and see how things turned out:

1. What effect will Hurricane/Tropical Storm Hanna have on this game?
Absolutely none, except maybe in the way the teams prepared. I don’t know where the storm went, but when I woke up Saturday morning it was completely clear and for most of the afternoon there weren’t but a few clouds in the sky. It was even pretty hot, about like it always is for early September games. I’m glad it left us alone, but it was weird for it to completely disappear the way it did.

2. Will the offensive line’s pass protection hold up? Will the run blocking improve?
I don’t think we saw a step backwards this week as much as we just didn’t see a step forward. Ole Miss has a talented line and they were able to sack Skinner four times and disrupt the passing game some, but I don’t think the line’s played any worse in pass protection; they just faced a better unit. That’s not to say I think it was acceptable, as I would have much rather seen them step up and play better than last week, but I don’t think it was worse.

I have a similar response to the run game. It was really a pretty similar performance to last week, with plenty of mistakes and struggles. They looked better in the second half, particularly on the drive that ended in Pendergrass’s 12 yard touchdown run, but they did not show the improvement I thought we might see this week.

3. Can the receivers avoid dropping passes?
Pretty good job by the receivers this week. Off the top of my head I can only think of a couple drops towards the end of the game – one from Kevin Harris and another from Marshall Williams. Granted, they came at a crucial point in the game when you don’t want to be having any mistakes at all, but on the whole I thought it was a very good performance from the receiving corps.

4. Will Ole Miss avoid turnovers? Will Wake be okay if they do?
No, the Rebels did not avoid turnovers. Two interceptions and a lost fumble led to 10 Wake Forest points. The fumbled punt that led to the first score by the Deacs could have been the difference in the game. Without that Wake probably goes into halftime in a big hole and may not have been able to climb out in the second half.

5. How beautiful will Deacon Tower be?
It was definitely beautiful, but I was somewhat surprised they didn’t do anything special to commemorate it. I’d love to hear from anyone who was up there for the game what their thoughts are. Is it a great place to watch the game? Are the amenities and service up to par for gameday? I’m guessing the answers are yes, but I’d love to hear about it.

As for my predictions, well, let’s just say they weren’t so good. Other than the fact that Wake won I didn’t really get anything right. I thought the run game would have a better week, including someone going over 100 yards. Seeing as how there weren’t even 100 yards total, clearly that didn’t happen. I said Ole Miss definitely wouldn’t score 27+ points and they did (28). I predicted 31-17, and although I came close with the 31, it clearly wasn’t the game I projected. Ole Miss gets a lot of credit, but a win is a win and I’ll gladly take it.

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I was able to talk to both Jim Grobe and Riley Skinner about the preparations the team is beginning to make for the Baylor game. For Jim Grobe, the transition is not particularly easy:

Zach Smith: How does your thinking and planning have to change now that you're working specifically towards Baylor?

Jim Grobe: Well it's game plan stuff. It's a tough change, actually. We've really for the majority of the summer been going against each other, so it's been Wake Forest against Wake Forest, so we've been seeing a lot of things we do offensively, they've been seeing about all our defensive package, and it's really been hard because it's hard to focus on any one thing.

Now we've got to completely shift gears. In just about a week's time we've got to get ready for Baylor's schemes offensively and defensively. So it's a tough turn around and that's the deal. We've got to really kinda try to completely forget what we've seen for two weeks and start focusing just on Baylor.

ZS: Having Art Briles as a new coach there, what do you look at to figure out what it is you need to be preparing for, since you haven't seen him there before?

JG: You try to look at the things that he did in Houston and that the staff did, but that's a problem for us because he didn't bring all of his staff with him. I think he only brought a couple guys with him from Houston. His defensive coordinator stayed. So you just try to look at some of the things they did at other schools, where some of the other coaches came from.

You try to get little bits and pieces as you can of things that they did at their other schools, but the problem is they're going to get to Baylor and have a completely different group of athletes and you have to assume they're thoughts will change a little bit, so we've got to go to Baylor and basically figure them out when they start the game. You know, it's not a good feeling for coaches.

Starting on the road is always tough. All your mistakes are magnified; every turnover that you have, every bad kicking game play, every big play that the opponent has, the home crowd is into it and it makes it tough especially on young players. Then you throw in the fact that we're not really sure what they're going to do it makes it a really tough opener, in addition to having really good players with a really good coaching staff.

ZS: Does the fact that it's a Thursday night game play into that at all? Does it make it more difficult? Less difficult?

JG: It probably turned out to be a little bit better for us only from the standpoint that we've got plenty of time to get ready for the first game and then a little more time with the long flight back to get ready for Ole Miss. So I'd say playing Thursday, playing Saturday, probably doesn't matter as far as playing Baylor, but having a couple extra days to recover from a long trip will give us a chance to kind of catch our breath before we start getting ready for Ole Miss.

ZS: With school starting next week, how does that affect the players and their schedules and how they manage football and school and all that stuff? (Ed. note: terribly worded question)

JG: It will probably affect the young guys a little bit. The young guys are a little more flighty. They get all the new students back on campus and they go just a little bit crazy. The older guys have been around the block a couple times. I wouldn't think it would affect our older guys much at all.

It's a little bit of a transition only because with practice and lifting and meetings and those type things, we've been doing that without anything going on for a few days now, and we'll go back after classes start and do practice and be lifting in the afternoons, so it's a change. But because we're primarily relying on older players I think it's a little bit easier.

For Riley Skinner, the transition comes as a welcome change:

ZS: Now that you guys are starting to prepare for Baylor, how does your mindset and your preparation have to change? What are you doing differently now?

Riley Skinner: You know, it’s a lot more fun. We’re not going against our same team every day any more. We’re still practicing against them but we’re going against Baylor defense. We do a lot more scout team now with the other guys. Now in the quarterback room we’re game planning, seeing how our routes are going to work against Baylor, not compared to earlier this summer we’re scheming against how we can beat our defense.

So we’ve made a bunch of changes. We’ve dropped plays, we’ve added plays, and I think we have a pretty good package going in for them right now.

ZS: Do you think the last few weeks have prepared you well enough to be doing all that this week?

RS: Oh yea, definitely. We feel really good right now where we’re at. We’re getting all our guys back health-wise that have been banged up a little bit. Everyone’s understanding the offense really well. I think we had a really good preseason with just the player-oriented workouts. We made sure we got our offense down, got everybody on the same page, and that’s helped us a bunch because everyone’s kind of firing on all cylinders right now.

Looks like it's not just the fans who are ready for some football. I don't think anyone in the Wake Forest community can wait for Thursday night.

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There really aren't any links to share this morning, so we're going to do something completely different with today's "Wake up call."

For the first time since practices began on August 1, Jim Grobe and his football team took yesterday off. Having been through eight days of practice and a scrimmage, now is the perfect time time to look back and see what we've learned about this team so far.

• The Demon Deacons have hit the ground running and Grobe has worked the team very hard. Until yesterday the team worked for an average of about two hours per day without a single day off. I haven't seen any indications that people are running out of gas, so I think this is a good sign for the strength and conditioning work the team did over the summer.

• Injuries are presenting a bit of a problem. The Deacons have avoided any big injuries to anyone expected to see significant playing time this season, but a minor injury bug does seem to have bitten the team. Lots of guys are coming up with injuries that shouldn't cause them to miss any games, but are definitely keeping them from getting the work they need in the preseason. I don't think it's at the point where people need to be worried about it having much effect on the season as a whole, but it's definitely something to keep an eye on.

• The questions about who is going to catch the ball have been answered. D.J. Boldin has definitely stepped up, as have Devon Brown, and Ben Wooster. Chip Brinkman, although injured right now, also appears to be ready to step up come August 28.

• Coach finally found a long snapper, or rather a long snapper came back to him. Greg Bechtel has stepped up and appears ready to competently fill the shoes left by Nick Jarvis. Despite having left the team before the spring, Bechtel appears ready to put the one bad snap of his career behind him and handle the task before him. I think this is a huge sigh of relief for the coaching staff and for the fans.

• The defense is as good as advertised. It's a strong unit with plenty of experience winning football games. They showed their readiness in the scrimmage Saturday night, and despite the fact that defenses are often ahead of their offensive counterparts this early in the season, this unit is ready to keep up that pace all season long.

• The offensive line is still of some concern. That's not to say that they aren't capable of getting the job done - I believe they are - but it's a good thing they have a couple more weeks of work to get their chemistry down. They should be a successful unit, they just need to keep working hard.

• More freshman might be ready to play this season than we expected. It's always hard to tell what coach is really thinking when he talks about freshman, but these quotes indicate a few guys make actually be ready for the challenge:

  One of the real issues we have right now is that we have five or six true freshmen who look really good. We're going to keep looking at them. I don't have a problem playing them if they're the real deal and they're going to get 20 or 30 snaps per game. We've got a bunch of those guys right now who look pretty good but we'll know more after Saturday.

I'm relatively certain the coaching staff would consider the first nine days worth of work a success, and as they go through a two-a-day today I expect we'll see more good things. As long as the injuries don't get any worse, this team should continue to improve and be ready to go to Waco on the 28th and take care of business.

photo by Dean Shore

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Just some quick links this morning. It went up very late last night, so if you missed it here is the practice report from yesterday.

Al-Farouq Aminu will plead guilty to BB gun charges and will face three years probation. It should not affect his basketball career.

Here's a random Wake football preview from Olympia, WA. Go figure.

HD ranks Jim Grobe the #1 coach in the conference. The rest of the list makes me scratch my head a bit, though.

Grobe says he's found a snapper - Greg Bechtel. Good news.

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After yesterday's practice I talked about how impressed I've been by the offense. I don't necessarily think I spoke too soon, but today wasn't their day.

Instead it was the defense's turn to shine, but I get the impression that it wasn't so much the defense performing particularly well as it was the offense having some problems. Perhaps it was just a lack of focus for the offense, but receivers dropped way too many balls.

Still, it's good to see the defense have success. Not that anyone should have been worried at this point, but I think it's good for everyone to have some good days early on just to build confidence.

Coach Grobe agreed that it was a good day for the defense. "The defense had a good day today. Yesterday, I thought the offense had the upper hand on the defense. As typically happens, when one side or the other has a good day, the other side gets embarrassed a little bit and comes out and practices better the next day."

Grobe has also mentioned that it's unusual to start doing a lot of special teams work this soon after the start of practices, but once again the team was working on it. Not only did the punt team get some work tonight, but also the field goal unit.

The news on the injury front is not particularly good. Chip Brinkman, who sat out yesterday after being hurt Sunday, will probably be out a couple of weeks with a hamstring injury. It's the type of injury that he could probably return from more quickly, but I'm guessing that they don't want to create a situation where it will nag him for the whole season by bringing him back too early. Still, this is valuable time for a guy like him who is looking to have a big impact this season, and this definitely won't help.

Redshirt freshman tight end Cameron Ford has been injured as well and will likely be out for awhile with an ankle sprain. Also not practicing today were fulback Anthony Williams and tight end J.T. Dixon.

Photo by Bob Hebert

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Today was the local media day for Wake Forest football, which is great except for the fact that I'm not going to be local media for another two and a half weeks. Information on the event and quotes from Jim Grobe and a handful of players can be seen here on the official site.

As for the actual practice, here are some notes:

• Practice was delayed about a half hour due to some pretty big thunderstorms, and ended with another big thunderstorm.
  

• More team drills today; D.J. Boldin caught a deep ball that would have gone the distance and made a few other nice catches
  

• Alphonso Smith had one of the easiest picks of his career after a ball deflected right at him off a receivers hands. It may not have been the receivers fault though; the throw was high.
  

• Kerry Major is practicing, but there's no contact at practice right now so we'll have to see what he does when there is in a few days.
  

I think things will pick up once the team starts adding pads to the mix; I'm guessing the guys are ready to start hitting each other.

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USA Today released the preseason Coaches' Poll this morning, and the Demon Deacons came in at 23. It is the first time in school history Wake Forest has been ranked in the preseason top 25.

Even though this is about what has been expected given all the other preseason coverage this summer, I think it's still exciting to see the coaches validate what Wake fans already know.

According to a release from the athletic department, Jim Grobe (one of 61 voters in the poll) had this to say:

I think it's rewarding for us in that people respect our football program. But at the same time, it's a little bit scary because we have a really tough schedule. I think we can be a good football team but that certainly doesn't guarantee a good season. From our perspective, it's nice to be ranked in the preseason but it would be nicer to be ranked highly at the end of the season.

Other ACC schools in the top 25 are Clemson at 9 and Virginia Tech at 16.

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Not according to Gobbler Country. Feel free to go give them a piece of your mind.

Don't come back and tell me the post is stupid, though, because that's what it's supposed to be. They've been doing it for every school. I will admit that their "dirt" on Wake is pretty weak.

I will comment on their stance that Wake will return to mediocrity when Grobe leaves: This will not be true if he stays around for 3+ years. If he left now we might be in trouble, but I think with a couple more years the foundation will be there for whoever comes next. Hopefully we don't have to find out.

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On the recent performance of the offensive line (specifically Saturday):

"I thought we got a little better push up front with the offensive line. I think we’re just more consistent; we’re not making as many mistakes. We had too many dumb penalties; that’s something we’ve really got to take care of. I was pleased with the competitiveness of our scrimmage.

Now that we’ve got the weight down on some of these guys I just like the looks of that group. We’ve got the potential to be better up front than we were last year. I know that we lost some veteran guys but I think this might be the most athletic offensive line we’ve had in a long time. We have little more flexibility and a chance to pull people a little bit more and man block a little bit more than we have in the past. Now we’re more athletic and we’ve got the potential to just go one on one with some people up front.

We haven’t had a backup center step up yet. We really need Ryan Britt or Chance Raines to step up. Right now if something happened to Trey Bailey we’d probably have to move Russel Nenon back over to center and I don’t want to do that so I want one of those young centers to come on and step up.

Joe Looney has done some really good stuff. I really like that kid right now and I think with this summer to lift and be here and then an August under his belt that’s a guy who has a chance to help us as a freshman. We’d like to see Boomer Peterson be a guy, and Gage Crewes is another one. One of those two guys I’d like to see step up and be that other guard we’re looking for."

On the goals for the last week of Spring Practice:

"We’re probably going to add a few things here and there just to play with. In the spring we tinker with stuff because we don’t have to play anybody so if it doesn’t work we don’t have to panic about it. I think our emphasis even more now, you’ll probably see fewer reps from the old guys and more reps from the young guys. Just keep trying to get young guys more experience. The only experience they’re going to have when we got to Baylor is what we give them now and in August so we want to make sure to give them as much as possible."

I'm looking forward to this last week of work. I should be able to attend Wednesday and Thursday practices in their entirety and of course Saturday's game. As always, full reports will follow ASAP.

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I'm on a bit of a tight schedule tonight and don't have time to do a full writeup right now, but I'll share a few quick notes from the brief time I spent out at practice today and a couple of Grobe quotes. Hopefully late tonight I can transcribe more of what Grobe said at practice today and get that up, too.

- WR Casey Hill, who looked like he seriously injured his right knee in Saturday's scrimmage, is in a walking boot with only a high ankle sprain and will be healthy in 2-3 weeks. Great news for him.

- It was a beautiful afternoon out there and from what I can tell the sunny but cool temperatures are exactly what the guys like to practice in. In the drills I saw everybody seemed to be working hard. I saw Dennis Godfry working hard and getting high praise in some drills (sentiments echoed by Coach Grobe) and I was also impressed by the WR corps who were making some good moves on the corners in route running drills.

I was involved in a conversation on the Scout.com message boards over the weekend regarding the current state of our depth at running back. I figured I might as well get the right information straight from the horses mouth, so I asked coach about it:

"Right now C.J. is our third tailback. He’s doing some good things but he’s not a very big guy and I think he’s got a sore shoulder right now and so for him he’s got plenty of ability but durability is going to be the key. Any time you have a player with that kind of speed you feel like you’ve got to get him on the field somehow. We’re excited about his potential but the key for him is – at his size can he be a durable guy?"

Would Grobe consider moving someone like Y'lou back to running back?

"Yea, no doubt about it if we needed to do that. We did it with Kenny Moore a couple of years ago and if there’s any one reason we won an ACC championship it was because we had Kenny at tailback so we wouldn’t be opposed to that. But we’ve got Lovell Jackson coming in in next year’s class. We’ve got some other players that we’ve kind of penciled in as DBs and wideouts but they played running back in high school What we’d really like though is to have a healthy Josh Adams and a healthy Brandon Pendergrass."

Good to hear. Check back late tonight or tomorrow morning for more of Grobe's quotes form practice.

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It was good to get back out and see a little bit of this afternoon’s football practice, particularly because most of the ugly weather that’s been hanging around since last Thursday seems to have disappeared. Unfortunately I have a pretty hectic week and wasn’t able to spend two hours out there watching the whole practice.

Still, I was able to catch up with Coach Grobe and get some thoughts from him regarding Saturday’s scrimmage and the state of the team in general at this point in spring practice. Now that he’d had time to review film from Saturday he talked more extensively about the state of the offensive line and about what may need to be done to get a better look at where they stand.

“I think protection-wise I think we’re a little bit better than we’ve been. I think our guys are doing some good things in pass protections. Had a couple breakdowns, typically when we just didn’t pick out the right guy to block. Mental mistakes hurt us a little bit but I thought when we knew who to block we did a pretty good job at times, but I think until we get a chance to get a little bit further in spring it will be hard to evaluate that offensive line.”

It definitely isn’t surprising that coach is reserving judgment on the line right now, as that is exactly what he should be doing. It’s all well in good for myself and other fans to be concerned, and coach certainly is as well, but there’s a lot of time between now and August.

I also asked if perhaps some of the line’s struggles stem from the fact that they’re facing one of the strongest defensive lines around.

“I really hope that’s the case. That’s the theory I’m floating out there right now. I’m hoping that’s the way it is. I’ve got a feeling that guys like Boo Robinson are pretty tough to block and there are going to be times where we’ve got everything drawn up just right and we’ve got hats on everybody and we’re just getting beat by good players. I think part of that’s true. I think our offensive line is a little better than I think right now because they’re going against such good people up front that once in awhile those guys are going to make plays. Good players make plays. Right now we’re putting in a lot of different plays offensively, different protections and the running game and haven’t really settled a lot on our running game. I think it’s early to tell but I do think that our defensive front has some very talented kids that can run and make plays so that at times can make your offensive line look a little bit suspect when in fact it could just be that your defensive front is pretty talented.”

I guess I probably threw him a bit of a softball there, but I too hope that we have a very impressive defensive line this season and that our offensive will only be better for having to go against them on a daily basis.

One final interesting thing coach talked about what the play calling in Saturday’s scrimmage, and really in spring practice as a whole.

“We probably through the ball too much Saturday, and the defense has a lot to do with that. In order for us to be successful we have to throw a little bit against our guys but I think a key for us next season is going to be our ability to run the football. We weren’t very consistent, but we didn’t run it a lot so it’s hard to tell. I don’t know whether it will be in the scrimmage or whether we’ll emphasize it more in practice, but I’d like to get a better look at these offensive linemen. If we don’t run the football a little bit more we won’t be able to tell.”

A couple of notes from the short time I spent out at practice: FB Rich Belton, who tore his ACL early last season, was at practice today participating in a few drills. He didn’t have pads on and definitely wasn’t participating in anything involving contact, but it was good to see him out there moving around.

I also got a look at Ryan McManus working on his long snapping. He definitely has the strength to do it (most QBs are pretty good snappers, actually) but his accuracy (and sometimes his spiral) still need some work. I know he’ll get a ridiculous number of reps between now and August and I don’t expect it to really cause any problems in the long run.

I’ll miss tomorrow practice (I have an early evening exam) but should be back out there Thursday and at Saturday’s scrimmage, so I’ll have full reports from both of those.

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The school officially announced today that the rearrangement of coaching responsibilities has been completed.

Former linebackers coach Brad Lambert has, as expected, been promoted to Defensive Coordinator, while Tim Billings will move from wide receivers to defensive secondary.

From Wake QB Tom Elrod is officially moving to QB coach from TE/FB coach, while new coaches Brain Knorr and Steve Russ take over TE/FBs and receivers, respectively.

None of this comes as any significant surprise, but it's nice to know everything has been straightened out going into spring practice here in a couple weeks. Given the last couple of weeks on the hardwood it's a pleasant change of pace to think about football season. I look forward to seeing the guys practice after spring break.

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Grobe started early, so I missed his opening remarks, other than the fact that he knows that we'll be ranked "13th out of 12" in the ACC again this year, but he's okay with that.

Recruiting in Florida has evolved, 6 of 16 from Jacksonville. ACC Championship experience helped that, but Tom Elrod's experience in Florida helps a lot. Everyone knows him.

Grobe says we really only have room for the 16 we got, so the fact that it's a "small number" doesn't bother him. Could have taken one more, but that's about it. The people who take 30 don't actually get all of those - academically ineligible, etc. The Fact that we have lots of 5th year seniors have a lot to do with this.

Grobe obviously doesn't worry about the "numbers" from the "scouting experts." Wants to find football players who can win in the ACC but can also graduate from Wake Forest.

"I'm sure there's somebody on there" who won't redshirt next fall. Most likely one (or more) of the guys who are here now grey-shirting.

Dixon is here and good, Looney is here and "looks great."

In this class Grobe was looking primarily "just for balance." Made sure each coach got someone he wanted, the only problem late was making sure they got a DE. This is what Kevin Smith is for.

Hoping Dixon can help at TE pretty quickly, Parker could be really good too. Playing early has a lot to do with positions too.

Tries to avoid "stashing" guys at prep schools, really only done it once.

Coaching staff changes "might have" had an impact on recruiting, maybe not. Tries not to keep coaching changes "hush hush" like some schools do, thinks it's better to be up front with guys.

Does not send out more LOIs than he can accept - Wellman gets mad of we do these things.

Gaines was willing to wait a semester to enroll because he really wanted to play for Wake. He's here now and is doing well, both athletically and academically.

Chris Givens can't be talked about, Grobe saying only that he's "recruiting Chris Givens."

Kenny Okoro - great cover guy, like an Alphonso Smith, 4.0 high school student, also ran a 4.49 at camp last summer. Can also play WR and Special teams. Kind of tall, which they like for corners (like Brandon Ghee).

Joe Looney - Wonderful kid, great family, ended up with over 30 offers but he came to campus 3 times and the current players were great with him and he felt really comfortable here.

Lovell Jackson - can really run, in fact he really loves track. Good academics

Class is characterized by athleticism and speed, which Grobe loves.

Team has increased credibility in Florida thanks to Skinner and Alphonso, everyone there knows about them.

Lambert has not yet decided who exactly he wants to coach. He wants to stay with the guys he's got, but may not happen.

Grobe thinks we could possibly sign another one but we'll see. Still working a little bit. Nonetheless, still very happy with the class.

Stachitas - throws the ball great but also very very fast. Dual-Threat player.

Regarding disappointments - can't really talk specifically, but sometimes in these situations you second guess some things if you'd done things differently, but all-in-all expects things to work out and feels pretty good.

There are seven to nine guys who are ready to play physically, but not mentally so they probably won't be playing much right away.

Really like Terrence Davis, but most likely Kenny's roll will be filled by people like Devon Brown.

Most players bring up the fact that they will probably be redshirted at Wake, because other schools have told them Wake will do that, but Grobe tells them that they're not going to waste a year of eligibility for 5 snaps a game, but if they're good enough they will play.

The 06 Championship season actually probably helped with recruiting this season more than it did last year.

Coach doesn't feel like they have to sell players on being able to win football here anymore, the kids already know.

Lots of juniors will be on campus this coming weekend, of course he can't mention any by name.

Team is moving towards being more of a power football team, but we've actually gotten too big and need to get weight back down for some lineman. Rather work from being too big to a little smaller rather than from too small but can't get big enough.

And that's all there is. The video should be up on the school's site later, and I think I might be able to get my own audio up but I'll see about that.

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Coach Grobe held a press conference just a little while ago on campus just outside the football facilities. He avoided answering specific questions regarding any specific job, saying only that he is excited about this team and next season and that he couldn't leave because of his relationships with players. He also said that any rumors of him making more money here at Wake are not true, and that he didn't get an even longer deal. He does not deny that he will pay attention when other jobs become available to him, but that he loves things here at Wake, particularly the way he and his staff are treated by AD Ron Wellman.

Not suprisingly, Coach artfully dodged anything specific (as he should, I suppose, even if it's very frustrating to us fans) but at this point I'm satisfied to just be happy with the fact that Grobe is still here.

If you're interested, News 14 has the video up on their website.

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Reports this morning indicate that Coach Grobe will not be leaving Wake Forest to become the new head coach at Arkansas. Whether or not he ever actually planned to is tough to say at this point.

The Old Gold & Black student newspaper (which I now have more respect for after this story) reports having talked to Ron Welllman this morning and learning that Grobe is staying at Wake after having slept on the decision overnight. Here is the link to the Old Gold & Black story.

12:12 Update - Although things seemed pretty official when I first posted this morning, more and more news outlets are reporting Grobe is definitely staying, including ESPN. At 11:00 this morning there was an impromptu fan rally outside the Pruitt Football center on campus. It looked like about 50 people showed up and the "event" mostly consisted of people standing around talking and looking relieved. Several players, including Riley Skinner, walked by while people were out there. According to the players Coach is currently not on campus and nothing official has been said to the players. Nonetheless, they are hearing the same things we are and are feeling much better about the whole situation.

I will continue to follow this story throughout the day, but as of now it looks like all is right here in Winston-Salem.

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Final update from me for tonight. The only thing that would make me post anything else would be something official, but it seems pretty clear that nothing but speculation will happen tonight. For what is being said by big media outlets, see my last post.

Being on campus I have conversations/hear of conversations with players on a somewhat regular basis, and not suprisingly tonight is the type of night when everyone wants to find out what they know. Interestingly, it seems there are some different perspectives of what's going on even among the team. It is mostly unanimous that Grobe was acting weird tonight both at practice and then at a meeting after. Some have said assistant coaches were crying, others that they weren't. Grobe definitely didn't say anything specific about Arkansas or any other situation, only that they need to focus on the bowl game and not anything else that may be going on. Some players don't seem overly concerned about it, others seem to be pretty stressed about it, some even to the point of saying they will be transferring.

At this point all we can do is wait and see what happens tomorrow. I haven't heard anything official from media relations (although I've asked them to keep me updated - but they don't always do that) about a press conference or anything else, but I've heard rumors of an 11:00 presser tomorrow so I'll probably head over there and see what's going on even if I don't hear anything. Hopefully we get this all resolved tomorrow. Either way, I just want to have this situation done as soon as possible.

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I've been avoiding this all day, partly because I'm busy and also because I prefer to have solid information. Nonetheless, this is looking worse and worse, don't know what to make of this most recent publication from the Arkansas News Bureau...It's the most concrete I've seen...

Grobe is New Razorback Coach

So I'm going to update this...
Really hard to decide what to make out of all this. Arkansas fans seem to think it's a done deal, we're of course all hoping it's not. According to one random unnamed Arkansas fan (clearly not credible, but doesn't mean he's wrong) the premium subscriber message board on Arkansas's Scout.com board says Grobe has agreed to a deal for over $1.5 million- I'm pretty much convinced this is made up, as I seriously doubt they have that kind of detailed info.

Meanwhile, WXII here in North Carolina supposedly says that "WXII says their sources at Wake say it is not a done deal. Not to mention the plane is still at RDU. Arkansas Foundation plane still at RDU with no flight plan scheduled," but this info also comes from an unsubstantiated source who does not make their connection to WXII clear.

At this point I don't feel like anyone can really say anything concrete. I certainly hope this isn't going to work out this way, on such short notice with apparently little communication between Coach, his players, and the school. Could be in for a long night...

4029 TV in Arkansas is also reporting this is a done deal, including video of their news report. Be interesting to if all these people have to eat their words. I certainly hope so.

Now the Associated press is getting in on the act - a salary supplement has been approved for Grobe, which is a "strong indication" that he will be their next coach - ESPN/AP link. Also, Arkansas Morning News has a bit more in depth report.

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No big news to report today that I didn't mention yesterday. Josh Adams won ACC Rookie of the Year, and other than that not much else has been going on.

The possibility of Grobe being interested in the Nebraska job has been a major source of concern, or if not concern at least interest, these last few days for Deac fans, as all of Nebraska waits to see What Tom Osbourne will do. Yesterday the Star-Herald of Scottsbluff/Gering, Nebraska reported that Osborne was looking primarily at LSU defensive coordinator Bo Pelini and Buffalo head coach Turner Gill, and stated that they were of particular interest because of their connections to the university. Suprisingly, that article made no mention of Grobe, although it did mention about 5 other coaches.

Today, however, the Star-Hearld is reporting that Grobe is being considered, making it sound like he's number three in the running behind Pelini and Gill, and mentioned that he met informally with Osborne earlier this week. More and more it's looking like there isn't even too much reason to be paying attention to this because most sources make it clear the other two are the primary candidates. Nonetheless, we'll wait and see what happens. I, for one, am confident we'll see Grobe on our sidelines again next fall.

Also saw today that the Lady Deacs are receiving votes in this week's AP basketball poll. Congrats and keep it up!

One last thing on an entirely different note, tonight is the beginning of Jimmy V Week on ESPN, which you almost definitely know if you pay any attention at all to ESPN (just try to go to their homepage right now). Nonetheless, the Jim Valvano speech from the 1993 ESPYs is one of my favorites. Being from Houston I've seen enough video footage of Valvano running across the court going crazy having won a national championship to make me sick to my stomach, but this speech makes me feel entirely different. Although you'll be able to see it on any of the ESPN networks tonight at 7, I enjoy it enough to put it up here. If you've got 10 minutes to spend on it, I think it's worth it.

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I'm trying to get away from just reporting every single bit of Wake-related news I find. I realize it's just as easy for you to go check the WSJ website as it is for me, so I'm going to try to focus more on my own analysis, announcement type things like the Clemson game time, and news that is especially interesting or from an obscure source you may not find otherwise.

This falls into the final category, from WRAL in Raleigh. David Glenn has written an excellent article about Wake's success, breaking down our program and coaching style, giving much credit to Grobe and staff. I couldn't agree more. Thanks to CHillDeac for bringing attention to it on the boards.

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