As promised, ESPN's Heather Dinich spent the day in Winston-Salem covering the Deacons. She definitely posts a lot wherever she is, and it was no different yesterday. Scrimmage report, Grobe report, true freshman report - she got it all. Say what you want about some of her analysis/opinions, but she definitely reports whats going on.

Dan Collins wasn't going to be left out, of course. Here's his scrimmage report.

If you read this early in the morning, make sure to check back later this morning for the opportunity to help me out with my preseason ballot... it probably needs it.

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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.

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The Demon Deacons will scrimmage this afternoon at 3:30, so check the blog this evening for a report. ESPN.com's Heather Dinich will be in attendance; I'm interested to see what she thinks of the team and the scrimmage.

Men's soccer had it's first practice yesterday, and not surprisingly coach Jay Vidovich says there's work to be done. It's going to be a couple of weeks, and I'm going to miss the first one on the 19th, but I should definitely be at the August 23rd scrimmage to give everyone an early look at this year's team.

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The Deacs were back at it today with two-a-day number two out of five. Once again the double practices were used to keep working on conditioning and stamina as the team prepares for its second scrimmage tomorrow.

As everyone has probably figured out by now, most practices follow a pretty typical schedule, including individual drills, 7-on-7, 11-on-11, and special teams. For two-a-days, the teams wears shoulder pads and helmets only (they call it "shells") for the morning practice and full pads in the afternoon. Nothing new there today.

The thing that really stood out today were the wide receivers and the job they were doing against the defensive backs in 1-on-1 drills. The receivers were running very crisp routes and working hard to get themselves open. They definitely impressed some people, and it's another sign that this unit is improving and is ready to step up when the season starts.

Not totally sure why, but tight end Ben Wooster sat out both of today's practices, perhaps he hurt something yesterday, but I'm pretty sure it's nothing major and he'll be day-to-day. Freshman tight end Andrew Parker was apparently hurt in the morning practice, tried to come back and practice in the afternoon, but was not able to finish. I imagine he's just day-to-day as well.

Chip Brinkman and Anthony Williams are also getting better, and I think we may see them back on the field as soon as Friday. Cameron Ford was also jogging again today, so it appears he's well on the road to recovery.

Tomorrow's scrimmage is at 3:30, and I'll have a report on it tomorrow night.

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I don't know how many of you are regular Deadspin readers, but I'd be willing to guess it's less than half of you. I don't know if I'm a true regular or not, but I do at least scan post titles there on a daily basis, so I'm pretty close. Either way, they're working through the top 25 right now posting previews by readers, commenters, bloggers, or whomever else volunteered to write for them. It wasn't me in this case, but the person who wrote about Wake did a pretty amusing job, even if it isn't entirely "safe for work." Check it out.

ESPN worked hard to cover the Deacs yesterday. Its work included this Mark Schlabach's column which basically predicted a Wake/Carolina ACC Championship game, and HD with another preview, this time about Grobe's system.

Someone doesn't know a lot about college football...he's surprised Wake is a 13 point favorite over Baylor, apparently because "The Big 12 is generally considered a strong (sic) football conference than the ACC." Sure.

No surprise...the men's soccer team is ranked #1 in the nation in preseason polls. John Dell of the Journal wrote a nice preview of the team here. I'm hoping to ramp-up my soccer coverage here pretty soon. I'm plan to attend most home games this season, particularly conference games and those that don't conflict with football games. I know we've got some soccer fans out there and I'm going to do my best to cover them for you. They are number one and the defending national champs, after all.

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