Deacons Hold First Scrimmage of Spring
3/25/2016 12:00:00 AM | Football
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- Wake Forest head coach Dave Clawson and his staff put the Demon Deacons through a nearly two hour scrimmage Friday morning at the McCreary Field House.
The Deacons ran 128 plays from scrimmage and accumulated 428 yards of total offense. Freshman Cade Carney led the Deacons in rushing with 61 yards on 17 carries including a 5-yard touchdown run. Redshirt freshman Rocky Reid added 58 yards on the ground.
Quarterbacks Kendall Hinton and John Wolford split time at quarterback. Hinton completed 15 of 27 passes for 82 yards and one touchdown while Wolford hit on 17 of 24 for 128 yards. Kyle Kearns completed three of four pass attempts for 44 yards but led all quarterbacks with 22 rushing yards on three carries.
The defense started the scoring when Kalin McNeil intercepted a Hinton pass and returned it 31 yards for a score. During the course of the scrimmage, the offense added touchdowns on a 9-yard pass from Hinton to WR Steven Claude and Carney scored on a 5-yard run.
The two squads concluded the scrimmage with a simulated overtime period. Tyler Bell rushed for a 1-yard touchdown Wolford scored on a 9-yard run during the overtime.
Alex Bachman and Chuck Wade each had six receptions in the scrimmage while Claude led all receivers with 63 yards.
Defensively, safety Jessie Bates and DE Rashawn Shaw each had seven tackles. Chris Calhoun and Duke Ejioforeach recorded a pair of sacks. Brad Watson and Josh Okonye had interceptions to go along with McNeil's pick six.
Clawson, as a head coach is prone to do, saw plenty of positives during the session but also opportunities for improvement.
"The biggest positive of the scrimmage was we're clearly a more physical football team," said Clawson. "I just think we look bigger, we look stronger, we're more physical. I think you hear the pads are louder. That is the real positive. Like any first scrimmage, it's always sloppy. And because you have officials for the first time and things we might have gotten away with for seven practices, we don't get away with. The things that stood out, the defense gave up a critical third down because they lined up in the neutral zone. It seems like on offense every time we had a drive going we had a holding call or we'd have a false start. Like Steven Claude makes a great catch in the end zone but then he also had the two holding calls in the red zone that made us first and 20 instead of second and four on the 14 yard line. Those mistakes cost you drives and cost you points. So there's a lot of stuff we have to get cleaned up. We just have to stay physical and have a mindset that we're going to get better and I'm confident we'll do that."
Saturday's scrimmage was an opportunity for the coaching staff to not only evaluate personnel but to start to build a certain mindset among the top players.
"We're trying to get more guys with the mindset that they're `ones'," said Clawson. "Even if you're not with the `ones', you will have to play like a `one.' A great example is Jaboree Williams and Zack Wary. When we start the games next year, one of those guys will be the starter (at linebacker). But the other cannot look at his role as `I'm a two'. In reality they're both going to play, whether it's packages or splitting games. Our thing with Zack Wary is you've got to work in with the `ones' because you've got to play at the level of a `one'. I don't know who will be our starting rover, whether it will be Thomas Brown or Demetrius Kemp. But I would bet when a game is over next year both of those guys will play 30, 40, 50 snaps between packages and nickel (defense). They both have to look at it as 'I'm a starter' and then you want them to outperform the other guy so they play more. But we need more guys like that. The one area that we don't have that depth is on the offensive line. You see at running back we're going to three, four or five guys that are playable and it will be great competition. At receiver it might be nine guys. We have a handful of quarterbacks that can play. We're going to have depth at tight end, (Devin) Pike is coming on and it will be nice to have depth with Cam Serigne. On defense there are eight to 10 guys that are playable, there are seven guys that are playable at linebacker. In the secondary we still don't have Ryan Javion. (Jessie) Bates played well, he's played well all camp. We're making sure that with every time we go with the `ones' during the course of the scrimmage, that we play our `ones' and our `ones and a half'. We want 16 to 17 guys on both sides of the football to get reps with the ones so they say `Hey this is real'. We're not just going to play 11 guys on both sides."
For Clawson, seeing big plays is not always a positive during a scrimmage.
"As a coach, I love three to four yard plays. To me, three to four yard plays are good. Coach (Mike) Elko isn't happy with that and Coach (Warren) Ruggiero isn't happy with that but as a head coach a three to four yard play is a good football play. Nobody ran through, there wasn't a bust and it comes down to the that point of attack. And I hope on offense we get in a mode where we wear people down and on defense we stay fresh and we never get like that. If you look at the last two years here, how many games have we had a chance to win a game in the fourth quarter and we weren't able to finish? And whether it is we didn't make the play or we didn't have the depth, or we wore down, those are problems we have to fix and we're starting to fix that with our depth."
Wake Forest will return to practice on Tuesday, March 29 at 7:55 am inside McCreary Field House.
