Wake Forest Practice Report No. 11
8/17/2010 12:00:00 AM | Football
Aug. 17, 2010
WINSTON-SALEM, NC - The Wake Forest football team completed its work on Tuesday a little earlier than expected as it moved practice from the afternoon to the morning to avoid a potential weather conflict.
Coming off the second of their two-a-day practices on Monday evening, the Deacs got back to work right away Tuesday morning. The practice, which was in full pads, started at 10 am and lasted a little longer than two and a half hours.
"It was a little sloppy at the start of practice, but we switched it up on them a little," head coach Jim Grobe said. "We we're going to practice until early this evening but with a chance of rain and thunderstorms we didn't want to have to dodge the lightning so we decided to get practice in this morning. That threw them off a little bit. We had a pretty good work night last night so we turned right around real quick and went right into another good practice. It started a little slow but they started to catch on as we went along."
Having gone through a pair of two-a-day practices, Grobe was asked if the players give more of an effort on the days when there is just one practice scheduled.
"Absolutely. There's no question," Grobe said. "But we usually like to wait a little longer between practices. After a good practice last night, we turned around and did it again this morning so our guys were a little worn out but yeah, we usually get more energy on the days where there is only one practice."
"The problem for us is that we have so many young kids that we're looking at right now that are making so many mental mistakes that we almost need to practice five times a day to get them mentally prepared," Grobe said with a grin. "Physically they don't need it but mentally they do."
With a group of inexperienced quarterbacks, the kicking game is going to be key to the Deacon's success this season. Wake returns a pair of kickers, redshirt-junior Shane Popham and sophomore Jimmy Newman, who both have game experience.
Popham was thrust into action midway through the 2008 season after an injury to Sam Swank. In his first game against Clemson, the Crestview Hills, Ky., native made a pair of field goals and downed four punts inside the 20. He finished the year with seven made field goals, including going 3-for-3 in an overtime victory against Duke, and had a total of 19 punts downed inside the 20. Last season, he was the Deacs primary punter and averaged 38.9 yards a kick in 54 attempts.
Newman saw action right away as a freshman in 2009, as he handled the field goal duties. He was 11-for-17 on the year in field goal attempts with his longest boot of 44-yards coming in the season finale against Duke. Newman made three field goals in the Deacs' 30-24 victory over NC State on Oct. 3, and was 2-of-2 in an overtime loss at Georgia Tech.
Graduated senior Cline Beam was the third piece of the Deacons' three-headed kicking machine last season and with perhaps the biggest leg, he handled the kickoffs. Either Popham or Newman will have to fill that roll this fall and so far in the preseason, Grobe has had mixed feelings on his kicking corp.
"I thought we kicked a little bit better today," said Grobe. "I've been a little bit disappointed with our kickers and punters in the inconsistency so far this fall. We've got to eliminate bad kicks. Whether it's a bad field goal kick or a bad punt. We have guys that are on scholarship to kick and punt and they have to be more consistent. I will say though that today we kicked the ball well and probably had our most consistent kicking day."
Two more key pieces of the kicking game is the long snapper and the holder. Last season, Greg Bechtel did a fine job as the long snapper and the redshirt-senior will likely assume that roll again this year. As for the holding duties, graduated senior Ryan McManus was a trusted and consistent holder each of the last two season and Grobe knows it's not going to be easy to find a replacement.
"Ryan McManus held for us last year on all of our placements and that's an issue for us right now coming up with a consistent holder. We know that that's really important and I don't think we've settled on that right now. We have to find consistent pieces in each phase of the kicking game in the next couple of weeks."
The Deacons will have another two-a-day practice on Wednesday before returning to BB&T Field for the second of three intra-squad scrimmages on Thursday. The practices on Wednesday are scheduled for 9:30 am to Noon and 7:30 pm to 10 pm, while the scrimmage on Thursday is set to begin at 3 pm.
