Wake Forest Athletics
Football Signing Day Press Conference Quotes
2/1/2012 12:00:00 AM | Football
Feb. 1, 2012
Wake Forest Head Coach Jim Grobe
Opening statement...
"I think classwise, this is a great group of guys. I think this is a group of guys where the majority of them would fit at Wake Forest if they didn't play football, which is exciting to me. I think we have a group of guys that we're going to enjoy coaching. I think it's a group of kids that is very talented coming in. Everybody that had verbally committed to us stayed with us, which was really good. We had some issues last year with some of those guys, so I think we kind of targeted the right guys. Overall, it's a really balanced class. I think at the end we had a couple guys that we would have added had we been able to get them, but felt like if we didn't get anybody else that this would be a really solid class. We probably would have taken another running back, although I think that Joshua Wilhite is really special.
"I love Jared Crump and Jonathan Williams, two receivers that could be really good for us. We were looking to add maybe one more wide receiver and I think possibly would have taken another linebacker, but really overall as we look at our board for next year, I think we've taken players that represent every position group. As I mentioned, we might have taken another player here or there, but overall we've met some needs and may have to ask a couple of these guys to come in and play in a hurry, primarily from a depth perspective. It's a very talented class - a great group of guys that we're going to have fun coaching and guys that I think are committed to being certainly great players for us, but also are coming to Wake Forest because they want to get a quality degree."
On the incoming offensive line recruits...
"The thing that I like about Will Smith is that he has length to him. He's tall, he has long arms, he is a great looking kid that I think is going to develop - get bigger, faster and stronger. I think that we have a great frame to work with in both Tyler Hayworth and Joel Suggs. I just think that we knocked it out of the park with these three offensive linemen. I thought we brought in three pretty good ones last year, and with these guys adding to that group, I think we've really helped our depth. We've always kind of wanted to have 15 offensive linemen that we're working with and we haven't really had that. We're going to come back in the fall and have a really good group. You really don't want freshmen to play in the offensive line - Joe Looney did - but these are three really good football players and we feel like we've done really well with these guys."
