Wake Forest Athletics
Deacs Hold First Intrasquad Scrimmage
8/5/2017 12:00:00 AM | Football
By Wake Forest Athletic Communications (@WakeFB)
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – John Wolford threw a pair of touchdown passes and Wake Forest's offense scored on a pair of running plays as the Demon Deacons went through their first intrasquad scrimmage of the preseason. The offense tallied four touchdowns and a field goal during the closed scrimmage.
Wolford, alternating with the first, second and third offensive units along with starter Kendall Hinton, completed 14 of 15 passes for 131 yards and two touchdowns. Wolford hit redshirt freshman Greg Dortch with a 15-yard pass for the first score and found redshirt sophomore Scotty Washington on a 37-yard pass for the second touchdown.
Wake Forest ran 96 offensive plays, tallying 191 yards rushing on 53 carries. Four quarterbacks combined to complete 29 of 43 passes for 235 yards and two touchdowns.
"Like every scrimmage in the history of football, there's the good, the bad and the ugly," said head coach Dave Clawson afterwards. "The good is I thought the speed of the scrimmage, the physicalness of it, their attitude, the tempo of it, really, really good. I think guys came to play. I thought we rushed the passer well on defense. It was really encouraging to see (cornerback) Amari Henderson step up and make some plays as a corner. It was good to see (defensive end) Wendell Dunn win a pass rush. The bad is all those sacks are lost on protection. The ugly was the amount of false starts, procedures, the amount of times we got off schedule on first down.
True freshman Ja'Cquez Williams led the defense with 10 tackles including a half sack. Another first-year freshman, Ja'Sir Taylor, had nine tackles while Dunn, a senior defensive end, had six tackles and a team-high three sacks. The defense accumulated nine sacks on the afternoon.
"The defense had their best day," said Clawson. "This was their best practice of camp. You know Duke (Ejiofor) is Duke. But to have Wendell win a pass rush and even at the end see Michael Allen get in there. We looked active up front, there was penetration. I thought we tackled well in the secondary. Amari Henderson had two big plays, Tyriq Hardimon showed up and had some hits in the hole. On offense, we made some big plays. We weren't as consistent as we've been but the one thing we've never done is make big plays and today that's how we scored. It was all big plays. It was the corner ball (to Dortch) and the deep ball to Scotty at the end and he played 6-5. So we made some big plays which was encouraging.
"I thought it was the best practice the defense had all camp. We're not deep on defense but that first group is an older group and they weren't playing up to their potential and today they did," said Clawson.
Matt Colburn was the leading rusher on the day with 56 yards on four carries including a 42-yard run. Freshman walk-on Will Drawdy had 52 yards on two carries including a 44-yard scoring run. Hinton, who completed seven of 12 passes for 33 yards, added 41 rushing yards on eight carries. Freshman Christian Beal had a team-high 11 carries, notching 28 yards including a three-yard touchdown run.
Among the quarterbacks, redshirt freshman Jamie Newman completed six of 14 passes for 57 yards and Kyle Driscoll was two-of-two for 14 yards.
Dortch led the receivers with five receptions for 22 yards. Freshman Sage Surratt had four catches for 32 yards and Cortez Lewis had 36 yards on three carries. Washington had a game-high 47 yards on two receptions.
"The offense got off schedule and some of it was they beat themselves with false starts or procedure calls," said Clawson. "Other times the defense won on a sack. It's a lot easier playing defense second and 15 than it is second and two. That's where the defense did a great job of getting the offense off schedule and the offense did it a little bit of it to themselves."
Clawson was pleased with the emerging play of a number of young players on defense.
"(Linebacker) Justin Strnad is very, very improved," said Clawson. "I think he is really establishing himself as the third linebacker. (Linebacker) Nate Mays is really improved too. Those guys are three and four and now one of the freshmen has to be (the fifth linebacker)."
Following the scrimmage Clawson disclosed that redshirt freshman safety Traveon Redd will be sidelined for at least two months with an elbow injury. Cornerback Thomas Dillon, who missed all of 2016 with an injury, has been moved to safety.
"Thomas is smart, he's a good open field tackler.," said Clawson. "We're starting to feel a little bit better where we are at corner so we decided to move him inside because we thought he would pick it up the quickest."
Among the true freshmen, a handful caught the eye of the head coach.
"I thought (wide receiver) Sage Surratt and (safety) Tyriq Hardimon showed up, (cornerback) Coby Davis made some nice plays. (Cornerback) Ja'Sir Taylor made a nice play on a ball."
Late in the scrimmage, freshman defensive end Michael Allen drew a loud roar from his teammates after collecting a sack.
"Mike is making the adjustment to college football and he's getting coached pretty hard," said Clawson. "I think they were happy to see him have some success. He is as likeable as they come. Michael is very polite, likeable, friendly, he's a good guy and now he's making the adjustment to being a college football player on the D line. Which is not easy. I don't care how highly rated a recruit you are. It's an adjustment and maybe a little bit of a breakthrough today."
Dom Maggio booted a 32-yard field goal during the scrimmage. Starter and returning All-ACC kicker Mike Weaver was held out due to minor leg soreness.
