Postgame Quotes - Wake Forest at Duke
11/29/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
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Wake Forest Head Coach Dave Clawson
Opening Statement:
"That first half, we just let them have too many points. We gave them three short fields. We gave them a short field to start the game on the kickoff return, then we gave them a short field on the one punt we dropped, and then we gave them a third short field. They had 21 points off of short fields. In the first half, I felt, offensively, it was the best we had moved the football all year. We had a good mix going. We were running the ball and it felt like we were running our offense for the first time all season. Then we had a chance to get back in the game in the third quarter. We got the opening drive and went right down and scored, and then they put a couple more touchdowns on there. It became too big of a deficit to overcome. Our kids played hard all year. We have a really thin roster and it got even thinner today. I think we had 45 scholarship players dressed today for the game, maybe 46 or 47 if you count some of the backup kickers and things like that. But our kids continued to fight hard and play hard. You can criticize the result, but all year, it's really hard to criticize the effort. Our kids played extremely hard and gave great effort. We just didn't have enough plays to win some of those close games."
On Duke re-taking momentum to start the second half...
"I think it was right after we scored. They went down and went seven plays for 78 yards in four-and-a half minutes. If we were going to get back in the game, that was the stop we had to get and we had to get the ball back. The offense came out and did exactly what they had to do. It was great a executed play on the touchdown to Brandon Terry. That thing was executed about as well as you can. We had some third-down conversions today and some fourth-down conversions. Again, we just spotted them too many points early. We had that one opportunity to get back in it in the third quarter and didn't get a stop on defense. And they have a good offense. They have a good offensive line, (Jamison) Crowder is a heck of a player, the quarterback (Anthony Boone) is a good player, and they're big and physical up front. There's a reason they are where they are offensively, but you have to give a lot of credit to our kids. For our offense to struggle as we have this year and to play our best game week 12, that certainly speaks volumes about the kids we have."
On the progress of quarterback John Wolford...
"Anytime this year we've given John Wolford time and gotten open, he's played well. Today we gave him time and guys got open and he played well. It's hard for any quarterback to play well when they're getting pressured and guys aren't getting open."
