What They Are Saying: Army Week
10/5/2022 6:06:00 PM | Football
Hear what the No. 15 Demon Deacons are saying going into the Army West Point game on Saturday.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Coming off a 31-21 win at #23 Florida State on Saturday Oct. 1, the No. 15 Wake Forest football team is set to face Army this Saturday, Oct, 8.
Ahead of the matchup, the Deacs met with the media to discuss the matchup and other news around the Wake Forest program.
Head Coach Dave Clawson
Opening statement
Clawson: "To recap Florida State, like I said after the game that was a great, gritty ACC road team win. Sometimes there are games you win and you're relieved, but that game was pure joy. It was one of the biggest wins we've had here, and it has to do a lot with the circumstances. We'd come off a tough loss to Clemson and were playing on the road in a very tough environment to play against an undefeated ACC team that we have a lot of respect for. Then there was the uncertainty of the weather, not knowing for sure if we were going to be able to get down there. There was all the communication with Delta about whether they would be able to fly. You put all those things together and it wasn't a straight-forward week.
"Then there's how the game started. Florida State took the ball and got up 7-0 in the blink of an eye. The way our defense responded without any panic and we got some big stops. The offense scored 28-straight points, but then they scored to make it a seven-point game. That drive of 18 plays in almost seven minutes to make it a two-score game — some of the plays we made on that drive, like the catch by Key (Ke'Shawn Williams), some of Sam's (Hartman) throws and the runs by Christian Turner. There were so many gut-check moments in that game, and fortunately we made those plays.
"For Matthew Dennis to hit the big field goal after his first career miss. Here's a freshman who has his first taste of failure in a game, and then his next kick has the game on the line and he comes through. It was a really good character program win for our football team. When those games are over, you don't fly home, you float home.
"Then we come back here on Sunday, and if you're telling them (the week before) to get over the loss, then you have to look past the win. These are the opposite challenges, to come back respond, recenter and refocus after a heartbreaking loss, and now you have to do the same thing after an emotional win. That's what is so great about college football, that there's both responses. And they're both challenging.
"We have to refocus against a really good Army team. That's a program I have a lot of respect for. Jeff Monken and I worked together at the University of Buffalo back in 1992. I've known him for 30 years, and the program he's built at Army is incredible. Just look at the last five seasons, there's an 11-win, a 10-win and two 9-win seasons. I'm sure they aren't off to the start they want, but this is a program that is used to winning and the players are used to winning. The character of the student-athletes there, these are guys who are very resilient football players.
"I just watched last year's game and my heart started beating again. That was one of the most tortuous games I've been through. We just couldn't get a stop. If Traveon Redd doesn't get that pick six on the field goal, the guy was wide open. That thing probably comes down to a two-point play. Every game we've played with them has come down to something like that. It was a three-point win in 2014, a last-second field goal in 2015, they beat us by eight in 2016 and last year's game was a barn-burner. We're their one Power-5 game and they're going to come here ready to play.
"It's going to be a sold-out crowd and we're excited about that. It's going to be our third sellout in a row and our fifth sellout in the last six games. I'm really proud and appreciative of the fan support we're now getting. I remember when I first got here in 2014, the players would complain about not getting good crowds and the students not coming. The message was why don't we put a product on the field worth supporting and then see what happens? We've done that, and the students and our fans have responded. We're grateful for the support we're getting.
"On offense, this is a very good football team. They're averaging 32 points a game, and 300 yards on the ground. They have two really good quarterbacks. The slot, Robinson, is a dynamic player. He went up and down the field against us last year. This might be the best blocking tight end we're seeing all year. They have a really good offensive line, and these guys know what they're doing.
"On defense, they have some really good players as well. They have a safety in Marquel Broughton who we believe is an excellent player. The defensive end Carter at one time last year led the nation in sacks. He's 6-foot-7, 260 pounds and very athletic. They're extremely aggressive on special teams. Last year, they faked a field goal, tried a surprise onside kick — they do that stuff all the time. They're very aggressive on their block team. They blocked more punts than any team in the country in 2020 and 2021 combined. Every time we play these guys it is a battle. We have a really important week of prep.
Other years in which we played them, we had an extra week to prepare. This time, it's one week. This is a hard offense to prepare for and they're multiple on defense. We expect a good, hard-fought football game. We're going to have to play extremely well."
On which part of the defense will be under the most stress
"The nature of their offense is they stress every single part of your defense. Up front it's the midline, the veer and the different traps that they run. When you're the defensive lineman, your head is just on a swivel. You don't know where it's coming from. All the misdirection they have impacts the linebackers. Jeff has been in this offense for more than 30 years. He worked with Paul Johnson at Hawaii back in the 1980s. This whole Paul Johnson system, Jeff has probably mastered it as much as anybody. In the secondary, there's all the different motions with the slots. Their starting quarterback has completed two balls for 130 yards. The backup quarterback has thrown the ball a little bit more.
"They've thrown the ball more than in the past, then last year they killed us with the pass. They started off with a naked boot that went for 50 yards. They won some one-on-one balls against a really good corner of ours who is now in the NFL. This offense is a nightmare to prepare for. It's a challenge. Part of having success against it is embracing it. I don't know if we embraced it a year ago. If we hadn't operated at a high-level on offense, it would have been a blowout."
On his assessment of the defense so far this season
"We're improving. We're better. We're fixing problems. Against Clemson, we were awful on third down, so we went back and looked at what we did. We knew we needed some changeups, and we did it, and were much better on third downs against Florida State. We can be more consistent. We have to do a better job of defending deep balls. Just seems like every time there's a deep ball, we start grabbing when we don't need to. A couple of our pass interferences, we're in great shape. Gavin (Holmes) on the one, had the guy covered. Go play the ball. Those are things we have to get better at. Overall, the arrow is up, but we have a lot of football to go."
On the defensive look with just three down linemen coupled with the combo of three linebackers and safeties
"It's been good and part of the reason it's been good is because of how versatile Malik (Mustapha) is. He's been really good as a blitzer and there were some times we used him as a spy. We tried to flush the quarterback in a direction, and sometimes in a direction from where he wanted to throw the ball. Malik's reaction of getting there and disrupting throws. Sometimes you don't sack the guy, but Malik was there so quickly and got his hands up. You're changing arm angles and ball trajectory. Sometimes that's the difference between a first down completion and an incompletion. It's been a good package. It was better against Florida State than it was against Clemson. The reason it was better against Florida State was because our defensive line rushed the passer so much better. We got no pressure on Clemson at all and we never got DJ off his spot. We did a much better job on Saturday of getting Travis off his spot. We got some good pressure on him early and he had a hard time setting his feet. Rondell, Jasheen and some of those guys, it didn't show up in the stat sheet, but they were extremely disruptive. We had many third down stops because they got the quarterback to move, which is half the battle."
On going out of conference after a couple of ACC games
"They all count as one. The conference is super-important and we want to win the conference, but we want to win every game. We want to be nationally ranked. We want to get double-digit wins. We want to go to a New Year's Six bowl game. Those are all goals of ours and every single game plays in every goal except getting to the ACC Championship Game. So, you start off the season with a list of all these things you want to accomplish. A lot of those goals, other than one of them, the Vanderbilt, Liberty and Army games are all important. We don't come in here and say this is a non-conference game so it's not as big of a deal. We only get 12 of them and they're all really important."
On the importance of the scout team in preparing for a team like Army
"It's the biggest challenge of defending a triple option team, when you don't run that, is the blocking and timing is different. Those relationships are hard to duplicate. We worked against Army in the spring and in fall camp. The scout team has been working it on Sunday, and they've been doing a good job. But it's never the same as what you face in the game."
On the group of receivers at Wake Forest
"You go into every game knowing you have guys who can make plays. Every week it seems like it's a different guy. I told Atorian that we will play Florida State again this week. He gets up for that game. That game, two years in a row he's played his best football. He played outstanding and made so many critical catches. The week before was Jahmal. And this week it was A.T. and what Ke'Shawn did was incredible. That third down catch was just an incredible effort by him. That was a game-changing play and Key is capable of doing that. And Taylor Morin is capable of that. The catch Donavon Greene made, his arm was completely pinned. The DB grabbed his inside arm, and he made that one-handed catch. Sam threw a perfect ball that only Donavon could catch. I still get so excited when those guys make those plays, but they seem to do it every week."
Senior Linebacker Ryan Smenda Jr.
On playing in his home state of Florida
"That was awesome. I've never been to Doak Campbell, so just to be in that atmosphere was really cool for me. Growing up it was always the Gators, Hurricanes and Seminoles, so just to see that childhood dream come true to play at one of those places, it was really awesome."
On bouncing back after Clemson
"It was really good for us. The whole message on Sunday, after the loss, was 'don't let that team beat you twice.' The morale around the team was 'that's in the past,' there's nothing we can do about it. The quicker we can forget about it and move on to the FSU chapter, the better. The emphasis was practice, practice, practice. The minute we drop our tempo in practice, is the minute we lose on Saturday. The leader, and even the younger guys on the team, really upheld this standard. We had a great week of practice and that showed on Saturday."
On preparing for Army
"Obviously, we understand it's a tough week. Even last year, it was 70-56. The defense understands that we have our hands full, but we had a great day today. We got aligned and we got our plays in. We've been watching a lot more film than we did last year. We just gotta go in there ready to rumble for however long it takes."
On assessing the defense through the first five games
"We haven't tapped into our full potential. We're working together and having a lot more fun than we did last year. It's all coming together for everybody, upfront and in the backend. I'm just excited to see us continue on this path."
On the defense depth
"The depth is awesome. Me, Chase Jones and the backend don't have to play as much, because we have the guys behind us that we trust to go in there and there's zero drop off."
On the defense forcing turnovers
"Florida State went down on the first drive and got the touchdown. They had all the momentum going in. For us to create those turnovers made FSU understand that they're going to have to play harder. We almost got that one turnover from Kobie (Turner), but Jaylen (Hudson's) was huge. That let the offense go back down and score, so that was really big for us. We know that Army runs a lot, so we're going to have to work on our punches and things like that to get the ball back to the offense so they can put more points on the scoreboard. We understand that they are only going to get five or six possessions the entire game. They're going to have to make those five or six count, so if we can give them two more, that can be huge for us."
On if they have anything to prove
"The only thing we have to prove is to ourselves. Exterior-wise, we don't have that weight on our shoulders. Interior-wise, it's just figuring out who we are now. Are we the team that's just going to accept the 56 points on us and just let Sam (Hartman) and the offense get rolling again? Or are we going to get ready for a dog fight on Saturday. We understand last year wasn't it. There's a new standard here. There's a new mindset here. Coach Lambert set that precedent on Sunday. We put FSU to bed quick and that turnaround was rapid. We're just ready to get out there and prove to ourselves what work we put in."
Redshirt Junior Offensive Lineman Michael Jurgens
On how it feels to be named ACC Offensive Lineman of the Week
"It's good. It's always good to get recognized. Obviously, I'll steal from Sam (Hartman's) playbook, it's an award for everyone else. We don't really read into that stuff too much. We care about the win."
On how the offensive line is playing right now
"It's like anything. There's some good and some bad. Definitely some stuff to clean up on third down from last week. I'm really happy with it. DeVonte (Gordon) is definitely taking the next step in his game and playing really consistent. It's great having Je'Vionte' (Nash) back, he's so firm in the run game. Sean (Maginn), Loic (Ngassam Nya) and I are really comfortable with each other. So yeah, it's good."
On how the offensive line feels after a successful game running the ball
"It's definitely a good feeling for us. Justice (Ellison) and Christian (Turner) are guys we're always really happy for when they're successful. It's kind of like the nature of our offense. It depends on what teams are going to give us. Last week, they gave us a lot of good run boxes. Whenever we capitalize on that, we're happy."
On if the team feels like they can repeat the 70+ point mark they achieved last year
"That's always a dangerous mindset. That's kind of our message this week. We didn't go into that game expecting to score 70 points, so we can't do the same this year. We just have to have the same mindset. The stars aligned in that game, everyone played well."
On the locker room after the FSU win
"It was great. It is every time you get an ACC win on the road. I mean I can picture every one of those in my head, since 2018. It's a really great feeling. There was just so much work put into this. To see how this team bounced back after the Clemson game, it's a really good feeling. We're at the point in the year where we are starting to form our own identity."
On staying focused knowing they have a bye next week
"We're starting to form our team identity. This week, we've shown how we handle defeat and now we need to show how we will handle a big win. If we approach this like the Liberty game, then it's going to be a really long game. We just have to go into every game expecting it to be a four-quarter war and knowing that it's going to be hard, but always believing that we're going to be successful."
On how they are preparing for Army's defensive scheme
"It's very rare that a team will play us the way they play everyone else, Army did last year, but at some point during the offseason they sat down and schemed up a way to play us, just like everyone does. Liberty came out and blitzed every play of the game and they blitzed on less than an eighth of their snaps coming into the game. That's where our coaching comes into play. In our offseason walkthroughs, coach (Ruggiero) scripts every single look so we are never surprised."
Redshirt Junior Wide Receiver A.T. Perry
On the talent and depth in the receiver room
"Since the spring, we get together as a group and talk about what we need to do and stay together as a unit. We hang out together during the summer and it carries over onto the field as well. That bond, that we all have as a unit, is special. Just working with the younger guys and making sure they're still on top of everything, and also staying on top of the older guys as well. We all stay on top of each other. It's great. It's fun coming in every day and being around them.
On how he adjusts to defenses
"I just go along with the game plan. We make adjustments here and there, whether it's in practice or the game when we get certain kinds of coverages. Sam (Hartman) and I talk about it. We talk about other guys as well. I make it a point just to talk to Sam (Hartman) and other guys to get their feedback on what they see on the field."
On his touchdown catch and connection with Hartman
"We worked on that during the summer. Just on different balls he's going to throw in certain situations, which makes the connection easy. As well as any other ball like slants and dig routes, we work on ball placements."
