I wasn't able to make yesterday's Deacon Tower tours for the media, but plenty of others were. Here's the rundown:
Winston-Salem Journal is impressed, and the News & Record likes it, too. WXII 12 even has some video.
As for the scrimmage, Skinner didn't play but no one's worried.
I'm on the road today, so this is probably it until tomorrow morning. Happy hump day!
For the second straight scrimmage the Wake Forest defense had an impressive performance. Not only did they combine for 11 sacks, but they flew to the ball and provided great pressure all afternoon long.
Matt Robinson single handedly had three sacks, as well as another tackle for loss and five total tackles.
Aaron Curry and Gelo Orange also had five tackles, and John Russell, Anthony Davis, and Kyle Wilbur all had 1.5 sacks.
The only way the offense could get anything done was through the air. Riley Skinner completed 13 of 21 passes for 142 yards with one interception and one touchdown. The interception came on a deep pass to Ben Wooster which was just barely under-thrown and tipped by Josh Bush for an interception. Later Wooster and Skinner got it right and hooked up for a 10 yard touchdown shortly after Skinner had scrambled for a 30 yard gain.
Devon Brown, D.J. Boldin, and Wooster all had four catches on the day. Two of Boldin's catches were one-handed grabs across the middle, and Marshall Williams also had a nice catch coming across the middle which he was able to turn upfield for 10 extra yards. Andrew Wright dropped the first three passes thrown to him, but later in the scrimmage he had a 50 yard catch and run for a touchdown that was called back due to an illegal formation, the product of some of the new formations and motion packages the offense is putting in.
Unfortuantely, the running game continued to struggle this afternoon. Josh Adams had six caries for 19 yards, and Brandon Pendergrass had 19 yards on four carries with one touchdown. The offensive line just isn't getting enough of a push yet, particularly the second string. The first string is showing improvement and I'm confident they'll get the job done, but there just isn't any depth at all. I'm sure the scrimmages are not any fun for Brett Hodges, who constantly has to scramble to avoid pressure.
The only injury of note was to Ryan Britt who went down with a knee/leg injury. I'm not sure of his status.
After two scrimmages I'm still pretty worried about the running game, particularly if the team ever has any injury problems on the offensive line. The second string is nowhere near ready for a real game situation. Even though it wasn't Skinner's best day ever, he still looked fairly good and is definitely ready to lead the offense this season. I think the offense is going to throw the ball a lot more this year, and Skinner will probably need to be ready to scramble some in the process.
The upside to all of this is that the defense continues to look very very good. When all is said and done this year I would not be surprised if they are one of the top units in the nation.
The overall progress is good, but the offense will need to improve even more over the next two weeks to be ready for Baylor.
The Demon Deacons took the field at BB&T for the first time in 2008 before a good sized crowd, scrimmaging against themselves and going through their first full contact football of the season.
Despite a few offensive highlights, the defense stole the show, putting on what was mostly a very impressive performance.
Cornerback Kerry Major had one of the biggest highlights for the defense, picking off a Brett Hodges pass deep down the sideline, out-jumping wide receiver Andrew Wright for a beautiful interception. Brandon Ghee and Will Wright teamed up for a second interception, as Ghee deflected the ball into Wright's hands.
Not too surprisingly, the defense was able to get pretty good pressure on the quarterbacks all evening, although there was some noticeable improvement from the offensive line as the scrimmage wore on.
Despite the fact that the defense controled things for the majority of the scrimmage, the offense did show a few flashes of great play. D.J. Boldin had the highlight of the day, as he he made a jumping catch over the middle of the field for a touchdown. Tight end Ben Wooster also caught a touchdown pass, and Devon Brown looked good catching the ball as well. Riley Skinner looked good throughout the scrimmage, but Brett Hodges struggled, as indicated by the interceptions.
The run game had some success, including several nice runs from Josh Adams and a touchdown run by Kevin Harris. Fullback Rich Belton had both a nice run and a nice catch, and showed some illusiveness to get extra yards. Freshman Chris Givens caught a screen pass which he turned into a 20 yard touchdown towards the end of the scrimmage.
As they have been doing throughout the preseason the team once again put a decent amount of time into special teams work. At the end of practice Sam Swank made one of two attempts from 52 yards, as did Shane Popham.
The scrimmage made it clear that plenty of work remains to be done, but I think there are enough good signs here for Wake fans to hold on to the optimism they have had ever since the end of last season.
The team will take Sunday off before returing to the practice field for two practices on Monday
