Wake Forest Completes Third Spring Football Practice
3/23/2011 12:00:00 AM | Football
March 23, 2011
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Wake Forest completed its third spring football practice session on Tuesday under blue skies and 80 degree temperatures at the Doc Martin Football Practice Complex. After two days of helmets only, the Demon Deacons were in shells on Tuesday with helmets and shoulder pads.
Head coach Jim Grobe and his staff are using this spring to get back to fundamentals.
"(Last year) we were in spring practice in the middle of the year because we had so many young guys playing that we just needed to do a lot of good old blocking and tackling," said Grobe. "So I think this spring, we don't want to lose that but we want to teach really well. We'll do a lot of shells. We'll decide as a staff whether to go full pads Thursday or not. We'll scrimmage some Saturday morning and have ACC officials there. We'll get a little live work. Whether we do that Thursday or not, I'm not sure."
The Deacons are expected to practice on campus on Thursday at 4:30 and scrimmage at BB&T Field on Saturday morning at 10 a.m.
Grobe's approach to Saturday will be to take a long look at some of the young players while limiting the repetitions for the more veteran team members.
"We'll try to mix up who plays with the ones and who plays with the twos," said Grobe. "We'll mix in our quarterbacks a little bit. Try to get more reps for younger guys. I think we'll have Kyle Wilber, Tristan Dorty and those guys out there but we don't need to see too much of those guys. The key will be to try and work as many young people. Honestly, we'll try not to get anybody too many reps because we're not a team trying to get in shape for our first opponent right now. We'll be careful. I'll be surprised if the scrimmage lasts too long."
While the Deacons return four starters on the offensive line, Grobe and the staff are taking a long look at some offensive line prospects who redshirted in 2010.
"One of the most fun times for me were those first couple years we were here and we had so much depth on the O-line, that we played 10 guys," said Grobe. I'd like to get back to that but a lot will depend on the young guys and how quick they're ready to go. What we would really like to do all the time, but especially in the spring, is mix ones and twos and not always have the starting quarterback with the one offense and the number two quarterback with the twos. Once in a while you can get a better bead on a guy if they're not always supported by starters."
The Deacons will hold their annual spring game at 1 p.m. on Saturday, April 16 at BB&T Field.
