Wake Forest Athletics
Wake Forest Football Practice Report - August 18
8/18/2008 12:00:00 AM | Football
Aug. 18, 2008
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - The Wake Forest football team continued its preparation for the season opener at Baylor with a pair of practices at the Doc Martin Football Complex on Monday.
The Deacons practiced for approximately two hours in the morning in helmets only, before an hour and 45 minute practice in shoulder pads in the afternoon. Head Coach Jim Grobe said the morning session was used mainly to correct mistakes from previous practices.
"We basically went over mistakes we had made in practice on Saturday and then special teams work," Grobe said. "We did a lot of teaching-type things. We weren't after a lot of competition this morning, so it was a good teaching day. It was almost like having a classroom out on the field today."
In the afternoon session, the team continued to work on special teams work and also spent time in 7-on-7 and 11-on-11 drills. Redshirt senior wide receiver D.J. Boldin made several nice catches over the middle and redshirt junior quarterback Brett Hodges completed a 40-yard pass over the middle of the field to freshman tight end Andrew Parker.
"I thought the afternoon session was alright," Grobe added. "We are pretty much finished with installation right now. We have all kinds of offensive and defensive stuff that we probably won't use during the season. I thought we got a lot of work this afternoon in team situations. We are starting to develop a two-deep and starting to work on our first opponent."
The Deacons will hold their final scrimmage before the season opener on Tuesday night at BB&T Field. The scrimmage, scheduled to begin at 7, will mainly be used as a run through for game day.
"The scrimmage is mainly an organizational scrimmage," Grobe said. "We're trying to simulate game day as far as warm ups and other organizational things. It'll be good for the young guys to go through it. We'll scrimmage for a while as well."
Special Teams Preview
When it comes to special teams play, few schools do it as well as Wake Forest. The Deacons have the luxury of returning one of the premier kickers in college football in redshirt senior Sam Swank. Already Wake's career scoring leader, Swank will set his sights on the ACC career scoring record. Swank enters the season with 286 career points and will be chasing the league mark of 393 set by Maryland kicker Nick Novak (2001-04). Swank's 60 career field goals is more than any other active player in the Bowl Subdivision and he has been successful on all 106 of his career PAT attempts.
"Sam has come back strong from the injury he had," assistant head coach Billy Mitchell said. "He's doing a pretty good job this summer and has looked strong."
For the second consecutive year, Swank will also be Wake Forest's punter. After averaging 41.2 yards per punt as a sophomore, Swank's average dipped to 39.8 last year but part of that was attributable to preseason sports hernia surgery that left Swank at less than 100 percent at the start of the season.
"Sam has improved every year as a punter," Mitchell said. "If he continues to stay healthy, I think he'll be fine. We're just trying to work on improving his consistency."
One of the biggest challenges during this preseason has been find a long snapper to replace the graduated Nick Jarvis. A four-year starter, Jarvis was such an outstanding snapper that he earned invitations to both the Hula Bowl and the East-West Shrine Game simply to handle the snapping chores.
A host of players are contending to gain that position this fall. Greg Bechtel is back after serving as Jarvis' backup a year. Russell Nenon, slated to be a starter on the offensive line, has also had some practice snapping. Lee Malchow, Collin Granger and Ryan McManus have all taken turns snapping during preseason camp.
"We have four guys that we're working with and all of them can snap," Mitchell said. "Consistency is the name of the game in long snapping as well. We're looking for someone who has both good speed and control."
-WakeForestSports.com-
