Deacons Hold Seventh Spring Practice Session
3/24/2016 12:00:00 AM | Football
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- The Wake Forest football team went through its seventh spring practice session on Thursday as head coach Dave Clawson and his staff prepared the Demon Deacons for their first full scrimmage of the spring.
Wake Forest practiced for two hours Thursday morning inside McCreary Field House. Clawson was pleased with what he saw.
"I really liked the way our offense executed in the red zone," said Clawson. "I thought they looked really sharp. The protection was better. We threw and caught the ball well. We executed the pass game well. I say this all the time, the better football teams (have) balance in their practice. I thought in the first down period it was balanced. The first and second down period against blitz, I thought the defense kind of got the better of them. We went to the red zone and I thought the offense had the upper hand."
Quarterbacks John Wolford and Kendall Hinton continue to split most of the reps at quarterback with Kyle Kearns also in the mix.
"Those two (Hinton and Wolford) have split all the number one reps," said Clawson. "If you look at the one reps and the two reps, both of them are getting the exact same number with each. We are trying to give them equal opportunity with both the first and second group. Sometimes the opportunity with the first and second group is different. The opportunity with the first group is the plays are cleaner while the opportunity with the second group is you get a chance to show what you can do when the play breaks down. And both of those skill sets are really important."
Throughout the spring, Clawson has been coaching the tight ends with Adam Scheier focusing on working with the specialists.
"I love it," said Clawson. "I've been here two years, we're into year three. I think a lot of the administrative things with the program are now set. My background is mostly on offense and I just want to get more involved. Last year when Mark Richt left Georgia he said one of his regrets was that the longer he became a head coach, the more and more he found himself removed from the football. I want to make sure that never happens. I want to make sure that I am still very involved. My job is to be the head football coach and at a certain point as the head football coach you should coach football. The nature of this job in this day and age is it can become very administrative and at times ceremonial. This is a way to make sure that I'm still involved with the X's and the O's. There's a group of players I'm meeting with. I don't know how long I'm going to do it. I'm doing it this spring, I may do it next season, I may not. I just really think that's a group we need to develop. I wanted Coach Scheier to focus on the special teams. We have a new punter and there's a lot of young freshmen like Nate Mays who are going to have to become core special teams (players). He's still the tight ends coach and he's in the meetings with me but I'm coaching them."
The team is scheduled to scrimmage at 10 am on Friday morning at BB&T Field. However, the weather forecast calls for a strong chance of thunderstorms in the morning. If that is the case, the team will scrimmage inside McCreary Field House.
"I want to see (the team in an) atmosphere (where) not everything is controlled, that the coaches aren't in a guy's ear and the players can execute their assignments without us there," said Clawson. "The way we practice is very controlled, it's four reps at a time, five reps at a time, two reps at a time. You go out there and now you're not saying `it's a red zone period', it naturally becomes the red zone. You're not saying `it's a third down period', you've got to know it's third and six and your ability to take over what we've done in these individual segments and apply it to a game like situation."
Much of Friday's scrimmage will feature the starters on offense vs. the starters on defense, followed by the No. 2's on each side of the ball.
"Other than making sure we get red zone work, I'm not going to do a lot of situation stuff," said Clawson. "So the format is the ones will go and they'll get at least 8-10 plays and we'll let the drive play out and we'll let the twos do the same. And then the twos will repeat it then we'll give the threes a couple plays then we'll get the kicking game going. And then we'll repeat it and at the end we'll do like an overtime. But it's not going to be coming out short yardage, goal line. If those things happen naturally in the course of playing, it will happen but we're not going to force feed that."
Should the practice be moved inside due to weather, the scrimmage will not be open to the public. McCreary Field House does not have adequate space to safely accommodate spectators.
The site of the scrimmage will be posted on Twitter @WakeFB as soon as a decision is made.
