Deacons Complete Spring Practice No. 4 at McCreary Field House
3/17/2016 12:00:00 AM | Football
Winston-Salem, N.C. - Wake Forest head coach Dave Clawson and his staff put the Demon Deacons through spring practice number four on Thursday morning at McCreary Field House. The two-hour session featured the first full contact practice of the spring in full uniforms.
At the end of practice, Clawson told the assembled media that there were elements of the practice with which he was pleased, and other aspects that he was not.
"The physicalness, the tempo, the sense of urgency of the practice, I thought was really good," said Clawson. "Through four practices, it should be consistent. Is it good like that the 12th practice, the 14th practice? Now we're going to go back to back (practices), will we have the same enthusiasm?"
When asked what he did not like about practice, Clawson responded quickly that he felt there was not enough execution during the session.
"What does a coach always not like?" said Clawson. "You can always execute better. It's never going to be clean. I love plays that are clean football plays. That everybody does their job, everybody's in the right gap, it comes down to the back and the safety in the hole. The back tries to make him miss and the safety tries to make a tackle. And it's good football. Everybody's done their job and it comes down to the critical one-on-one matchup that determines the play. When there are breakdowns, it never gets to the point of attack. Everything in football is designed to (where) you're trying to create this matchup or you have this leverage and this is where you should win or lose the play. When I watch the film I want where we win or lose the play to be the point where we (expected to) win or lose the play. When things break down, all these other things happen and you never get to the critical point of attack."
Clawson focused on turnovers which have plagued the Demon Deacons in each of the last two seasons. The Deacons were -11 in turnover margin in 2015 after being -2 in 2014. Wake Forest's 11 takeaways in 2015 marked the fewest in over 60 years.
"I liked (the turnovers) on defense, that we're disrupting it but we have been an awful turnover margin team here for two years.," said Clawson. "Last year we turned the ball over and we didn't get it back. The only way you flip (a) 3-9 (record) to more wins than losses is you can't be that far behind in turnover margin. That said, every year the teams that win the turnover margin win games, go to bowls, and compete for championships. The teams that lose turnover margin sit home over Christmas and January break and have to watch the bowls on TV. We can get stronger, and more athletic, but if we don't flip that number, none of that will matter."
Wake Forest will hold its fifth spring practice on Friday, March 18 at 4:14 pm at BB&T Field.