Wake Forest Athletics
Signing Day Press Conference Quotes
2/5/2003 12:00:00 AM | Football
Feb. 5, 2003
Coach Jim Grobe:
"I am really excited about this class. I think it is a real talented class. We've got a lot of great players as well as a lot of great kids that will represent Wake Forest well on and of the field. We are in the development business at Wake Forest and I think over the next four or five years, this is a class that will turn out to be special. As I said they are talented kids, but more importantly, they are kids that work hard."
"I don't think that size is as big of an issue for us. We're a little bit more on the offensive line and the defensive front we are looking for guys who pretty athletic with a lot of foot quickness. For our playing schemes, we've got to have guys that can run. I think that we have brought the type of linemen in here that can do that."
"We are looking for the ability to be able to run a four-man front, and you know everyone that's in a four-man front is coming to us wanting to talk about the 3-5-3. And we're going to be going to be talking to all the four-man fronts talking about the four-man fronts, so I think we need to expand a little bit. I think we would like to be a little bit more in a four-man front, but we want to be able to disguise too. I think we have got some players in here that we don't have to substitute every time we want to do that because most of the kids will be tough and can run pretty well. We are looking at the possibility that a couple of our linebackers have the ability to go down, so have the ability to do a lot of things next fall.
On a 23-member signing class: "You know we really didn't want to. When we went into the bowl game, we had 17 kids and I felt pretty good. I knew that there were some pretty good players out there that we were still waiting on, but what happened was it boiled down to was that we had hit 20 and we still felt like we need two defensive linemen and a quarterback. So Bruce Hall became 21 and our last two signees were defensive linemen. So it kind of became a necessity for us to sign those guys and felt very fortunate to get those guys late."
On the immediate impact of the class: "I think that if you looked at our needs next year, probably the defensive linemen have a chance to play. We would like to look to one of those kids to be able to step in and give us some playing time. But, the thing we don't want to do is waste a year of the kid's eligibility. So if Ray (McCartney) decides to plays those guys, they are going to have to play about 40 or 50 snaps a game. We don't want them to play only three kickoffs and then waste a year of eligibility. On the offensive side of the ball, obviously running back is a concern for us right now. We don't have a lot of depth there, so there are a lot of guys that we are going to take a real hard look at, and some of those guys may have the chance to step in there right away."
On the emphasis of the class: "Balance was what my staff and I were looking for mostly, and if you ask Ray (McCartney - recruiting coordinator) he would say defensive line was a focus and I would say that was probably true. But most of all we wanted a balance and we didn't want to over do it. I think we took care of our needs on the defensive line. You know we kind of balanced it out. We took four offensive linemen, and we went after more big guys in this class. Guys that had the potential to be great. Last year's class in the offensive line, we went more for the tackle type guys, guys with quicker feet. We've got a little more size in this class. We took a linebacker we really weren't planning on taking, but we got a great one out of Georgia. We took a couple of cornerbacks that will work for us and a safety. I think that we've got some pretty talented secondaries. So we took care of our needs there without overdoing it. If you looked at our class and asked were we possibly could have been a little better, we would have like to possibly have had another running back and would have liked very possibly to have had taken another wide receiver or big receiver. I think we have our ends taken care of at the slot back position, but we were looking for a tall wide out in this class."
On the Seattle Bowl's affect on recruiting: "When we went to the Seattle Bowl I think we had 17 or 18 guys already committed by then, so we had a good number of our players by the time we went to Seattle. I think what it may have done was solidify their commitments and I think it could have helped us get some commitments down the stretch. There weren't too many people we were into that didn't see the game and watch us play and thought that it probably would be a good place to play football, so I would probably say it helped us in some cases."
On local product Matt Brim: "We fell in love with Matt last summer when he attended our football camp. The coaches liked him; he's a very good student. He has great character and a great workout ethic. I think we like everything about him, but he had transferred into Carver and actually his junior film was not very good. And as much as we liked him at camp, we just didn't feel like we could commit a scholarship to him, so he went ahead and committed to East Carolina. Then after we saw him in a couple of scrimmages at the beginning of the season, there was no doubt in our mind that he could be a really good football player for us. So we went back and offered him a scholarship and thank goodness his heart was at Wake Forest. He's a fine player and couldn't be a better person."
On incoming quarterback Ben Mauk: "He's very important to us. The quarterback position was one of our keys this year. I think that Coach Jeff Mullin did just an outstanding job in recruiting Ben. We were fortunate enough to have Ben at one of our camps and we fell in love with him at camp. We knew that he was a fine player and we are friends with his dad, Mike, who is a high school football coach. Mike knew about our program and said it just kind of made since. He knew what kind of program he wanted Ben to play in and I think Ben felt very comfortable around us. Ben is the type of character kid that once he tells you something, that's it. A lot of people did try and come back on Ben, but once he made his decision to come to Wake Forest, we felt solid in that. He's really strong academically as well and there's not a better kid in America."
