Wake Forest Athletics
What They Are Saying: Virginia Week
9/4/2024 7:18:00 PM | Football
Hear what the Demon Deacons are saying going into the Virginia game on Saturday.
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – The Wake Forest Demon Deacons will be looking to carry the momentum from last Thursday's victory over North Carolina A&T into ACC play, as the Deacs will open their ACC schedule at home against Virginia Saturday, Sept. 7 at 7 p.m. The game will also be airing on ESPN 2.
Ahead of their 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
"We're looking forward to hosting Virginia this weekend for what is going to be a really important game for both teams.This is also the Gold Rush game to benefit Childhood Cancer research. The Open the Gate honoree is Dr. Lindsay Thompson who is a professor and doctor at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist. Lane Patrick was at our practice on Sunday, he's a young man who'll serve as the honorary coin toss. Our team had a chance to meet him and be around him and his family, which is always a rewarding experience. That experience makes our players appreciate their health and all the good fortune they have. Wrapping up North Carolina A&T, those are our games that we're expected to win and we're expected to win them in a certain way.
"There were positives, after we got off to a slow start, we did some pretty good things on offense. I was very happy with our red zone offense. We struggled the year before against Elon, that was kind of a sign of things to come for the year, so it was nice to see us get off to a good start in the red zone. We scored touchdowns down there on every drive except for a two minute drive, and defensively we tightened down in the second half. Clearly there's a lot of things that we have to get better at. We got off to a very slow start and on offense we had too many missed opportunities for explosive plays. There were really four post balls that were catchable balls that we needed to make those plays.
"We had too many penalties. We didn't have four false starts. We just have the two, but we had a holding and crackback block and on defense I'm really disappointed that we didn't defend the run better. Now the positive is the ball didn't get over our head. We didn't give up explosive pass plays, but the tackling and the run fits clearly need to get cleaned up. Overall, our special teams were pretty good. We had the two penalties on the one play, but other than that, we punted the ball well. It was good to see Matt Dennis get his kicks. But, it was far from the clean game that we wanted to play and we need to get better in a hurry with Virginia coming to town. If you look at Virginia, Coach Elliot's been there now for three years.
"He knows the ACC well coming from Clemson. The first year they struggled and they had the tragedy that occurred and didn't even end up finishing the season. And then last year they were 3-9, but a very competitive 3-9. They had five games that they lost by a touchdown or less, four of those games they lost by a field goal or less. So again, if you look at their season, they beat William & Mary, they had a good win over North Carolina, and they had a good win over Duke, and those were two good football teams. In overtime they lost to Miami, so a bunch of games that they lost by 1-3 points. Going through our program building here, I look back to our '14 and '15 seasons that in both years we won three games, but in '15 we were much more competitive than we were in '14.
"Then we returned all these players that started to learn how to win, and Virginia's right at that point that they've got a ton of players back. They've got 16 starters back on offense and defense, they have the entire offensive line back that started last year. They're very experienced, and they've got some really good skill. For example, [Malachi] Fields is a really good player, he was their second leading receiver a year ago; he's 6-foot-4, 220. They got a couple of transfers, one from Carolina and one from Kent State that have really made them better. They got Chris Tyree out of Notre Dame, who we did not want to kick to a year ago. Kobe Pace is back as a tailback, who played three years at Clemson. They got a couple of transfers from Clemson and Harvard at tight end, and their quarterback makes them go. Colendera is one of those quarterbacks that you got to defend the play and if you defend the play then you've got to defend the rest of it.
"And some of the biggest plays are just him scrambling around. They'll do a lot of design runs with him, they'll run – they love the stretch play. They've got a great boot game, they formation you, they trade in motion, they create all different types of three level boots and he's always a run threat, so it's tricky. You got to have your eyes in the right place, you've got to be able to have an inside quarterback player, an outside quarterback player. And even if you do that, he can make you miss. Defensively they bring back a lot of good players too, like all-ACC player Jonas Sanker and Antonio Clary who's back from an injury. Those guys are excellent, excellent safeties in terms of getting the ball down on the ground. At corner, they really upgraded themselves in the transfer portal. They got a player from Robert Morris, Michigan, and Penn.
"They got a guy from Akron who plays nickel for them and most of their front is back, including their linebackers. One was a freshman All-American last year, Kam Robinson. James Jackson was their second leading tackler a year ago and they've got some good guys up front; Kam Butler's back from injury.
"I just view this as kind of like two similar teams that maybe didn't have the season they wanted a year ago. Last year we lost three games by five points or less, they lost four games by three points or less. We have 16 starters back on offense and defense and they've got starters back. This is a really, really big game for both football teams, so I'm glad we're home. I have a lot of respect for Coach Elliot, we are both on the AFCA board together, as the two ACC representatives. He's a man of integrity and cares about his players and is building the UVA program in a very good way, so they'll end up having a good season. We need to play well at home to make sure that that doesn't start here this Saturday."
On having the early conference game
"We have now 17 teams and all these different time zones and pre existing contracts for out of conference games. I mean, I would not want to be the ACC schedule maker and to have a big game at home the second weekend on national television. So if this game gets us more exposure then that's a good thing."
On the inconsistent tackling
"I've been doing this for a lot of years. I don't ever remember a game one that you tackled the way you wanted to Cam. It's always a little bit of that balance of how much tackling can you do in camp if you want to get your football team ready, but you don't want to end up down nine starters. And it's always a balance and sometimes I look at quite frankly, who the opening game is and if you open with a Clemson or you open with Florida State, you're probably going to tackle a lot more. I ran the risk of we tackled, you probably tackled as much as we have the last two or three years, but I didn't overdo it again just because we got to keep our guys healthy here. Last year at the end of the season we were playing with a thin crew and I didn't want to start the year thin, so I was going to be a little bit on the risk averse side of trying to keep our guys healthy and hoping that if we missed a few tackles game one that we'd be able to survive it and find a way to win and we'll be a better tackling team this week.
"Just because so many of those tackles for guys just game one jitters just over pursuing things, not necessarily misfitting them, but just you play that game one and there's always those anxiety and jitters and you have those drops on the posts that those guys can make those plays 15 times over. But now the games and front of fans with the score being kept on TV and it's the old analogy of the free throw, right? A guy can step there and practice and it's the same shot 15 feet away, but give him a one-on-one down one with two seconds left in the game with 15,000 people there and the percentage isn't the same. So I'm hoping that we just got some of the game speed and we have guys that are good tacklers now. Nick Andersen, he tackled really well. Why is that? Well, Nick's played a lot of football for us, so a lot of the guys that struggled with it were guys that were kind of playing for the first time or playing the first time for Wake Forest. You're never going to have a game where you don't miss tackles. But most games, if you can keep the missed tackles in single digits, you're probably going to be okay. But there's no question we had too many."
On Deuce Alexander handling situations well
Clawson: "Even last year when we played NC State, he went out there and made plays and he gets out there and he played really well and he did a great job on special teams too. He watched him on the punt team. He was outstanding. If you watched the effort he made on the punt return. But you saw the Demond Claiborne effort play. But then on the punt return, if you look at Deuce and Rashaun Tongue, the two efforts that they made, and that's just his nature. Even last year in the NC State, if you remember the pick, he's the one guy who tried to track it down. His instinct is to go."
On Demond Claiborne maturing on the field and taking care of blocking both in pass protection but also down the field for his teammates
Clawson: "Well, Demond has matured in so many ways since he got here. He's matured as a football player and when he first got here, say he was a really good running back with his hands on the ball, but the other part of the game, the Pass Pro, the RPO stuff when he didn't get the ball and now he's become really good at that. And we made a big point the night before the game of what do we want the identity of Wake Forest football? And we've had our good teams, we've had those type of effort plays show up consistently. If you look at Demond's play, we had a very similar play in 2017 with Arkeem Byrd that we hit Tabari Hines against NC State and Arkeem by came off the RPO and sprinted 50 yards down the field and had a block that Tabari kept his feet and led to a touchdown in the NC State game.
"We had the Demetrius Kemp play against Florida State 2018, the Justin Strnad play that he ran from behind and caused the strip and Demetrius Kemp and covered the fumble. And we just said these are the type of plays that when people put on Wake Forest football, we want our effort to just scream off the film. And I challenge you guys to put as many of those plays on film as you possibly can. And we had 'em, the punt return, the Demond play, there was another play that they ran a screen in the backside pursuit was exactly what he wanted it to be. And to me that's just another sign that Demond is all in. And when you put that play up for his teammates and his teammates see that type of effort, how do you not want to block for that guy? You know what I'm saying?
"So that's part of his evolution of maturity as a football player that a lot of skilled guys, they think it's about getting the ball and catching passes and hope at a certain point they figure out it's about team success and all the little things they can do and he's going to make plays. He's an extremely talented running back and we know he's going to make plays, but when the player of his ability makes an effort play like that, those are the goosebump moments for me. But there's a guy that is now, and if you're in and you're going to run a perimeter run and how do you not want to block for that guy that just made that effort play for you? And we had a lot of those on tape. I mean I put four or five of them on to show the team in the Sunday meeting, but there was a lot more. We didn't have a hard time finding effort plays."
On how he rated the team on third down defense
"Our third down defense was good. We were 9-for-13. So that was good. Again, you say, okay, let's not let the ball over our head and let's get off the field on third down. And we did those two things and maybe at times we didn't commit enough guys to the box to stop the run, but we really felt that if we could just force them to snap the ball again and we had some guys playing in the secondary for the first time, we didn't want to give up double moves. Jamari made his second start home Blue, his first start for Wake Forest, Jaxson, Mull, C'Darius Kelly was out there for the first time and it's just like, don't try to do too much, do your job count that your teammate is going to do his job and that's how you play winning football.
"You have eleven guys on the same page. And so did we miss some tackles? Yeah, but those missed tackles would result in even 10-yard plays. Usually those aren't the plays that are going to get your beat now. I mean I'll say this A &T, they're better and they've got some good skill guys and the tailbacks a good player. Those receivers are good. Their quarterback's a good player. I'd be very surprised that they're not a lot more competitive in the CAA this year. But again, take it and try to get better from it.
On getting Donavon Greene back
"Well, the one play he made on the screen, I was so happy for him because you could just see when he scored, how excited he was. And he's had a tough two years. And the takeaway from the game is the best players have to make plays. And for us, Taylor Morin, Donavon Greene, Demond Claiborne, Deuce Alexander — those four guys made plays and they made dynamic plays. And now the challenge is as the level of competition goes up, we need those same guys to make those same plays. And now it gets harder. Virginia will have a better defensive line so the pocket will get tighter. We won't have as much time. Virginia will have a better secondary, so the coverage will be tighter. The level of execution will have to get better against a better football team. But to have Donavon Greene back is huge. Donavon Greene, when he's right and he's a hundred percent he's locked in, is as gifted and as talented as any receiver we've had during my time. And that includes guys playing in the NFL."
On shuffling the offensive line during the game last week
"That's our plan moving forward. We want to rotate the three guards. We're going to rotate the three tackles at some point and we'd like to give Luke a break. We want to play seven or eight guys and we'd like to do that all year. If we can do that , and we get to week 8-10 a little healthier and we're a little bit more of a fresh football team that's going to help us also on injuries."
On defending the UVA run game
"Well, we've got the fit runs better. When you play a team like Virginia with what they do, your eye discipline is really important with all their emotions and different formations and the boot game and the zone lead game, what they'll do is they give you all this window dressing and bang, they just hit the ball right down the middle and all of a sudden there's a 15 yard a gap run. And so having good gap control, having our eyes in the right place and then down in the football is going to be really important. Yeah, again, you look at 'em, they have 28 seniors or grad students in their two-deep. Every week I break down how many juniors and seniors are they playing with? How many freshmen and sophomores? And their breakdown is they've got 38 junior, seniors and grad students. So this is an older football team."
On the two-minute timeout and if it changes how he manages the end of game, end of half situations
"Absolutely. So I have a friend who's an NFL head coach and they have someone that they're basically devoted to doing this and you were able to do a little clinic and text them back and forth of how to manage it. And it's different how you manage the end of the game now is different because of the two minute time out.
"When I walk up and down the sideline, you'll see a guy behind me that has all these plastic sheets going them. And a lot of those have to do, I have the offensive game plan, the defensive game plan, special teams game plan. And a lot of it is clock management stuff, how to manage the end of the half, when there is a timeout at the end of the game. What if you're down one score? What if you're down two scores? It's a whole different strategic element to it. And so for 24 years I've been doing it one way and I've kind of had all these automatics and even when you can take a knee at the end of the game is different now. You used to be able to take a knee with the team, had no time out and it was 2:06 or 2:08, you just take three knees. Now you can't do that. Now you've got to run a play. And so yeah, I have somebody that helps me with it, but I also, for those last minute things, that sheet is right in front of me the whole time. I'm staring at that thing. And it also helps that our offensive coordinator now can communicate directly with coordinators. So that's been really helpful as well."
Junior Offensive Lineman Luke Petitbon
On what the game film showed from the North Carolina A&T game that will help the team for next week.
"The [North Carolina] A&T game was a good Week One test for us. That we showed a lot of good things. Obviously, with Week One games you are going to get a lot that you need to work on, especially when you start playing ACC teams like Virginia this week. There were definitely some good things on tape. We were finishing well, hustling down the field, and playing hard. There are some technical things that can be cleaned up that can help us moving forward this season."
On blocking for the running backs
"It's a great feeling when you are blocking someone and you see your running back burst open for a big gain. It's awesome. When we take ownership, we do our job, and we get a hat on a hat. When we get Demond has got one man to beat, we like our chances with Demond running it. Same thing with Tate. Tate's a different style of [running] back, but he's a back where if we block our guys and we get him one-on-one with a safety, he's got every opportunity to run that guy over or stiff arm him. The o-line takes a lot of pride blocking for both those guys."
On the matchup against Virginia.
"We've been watching tape on Virginia and getting into it early this week. It's a great challenge. Any ACC team and any ACC opponent poses a great challenge. Guys that have played here know that any time you get into an ACC game it's a four-quarter fist fight and we're prepared for it. Virginia is no easy task and we're preparing really hard for it."
On having an ACC game early in the season
"It's a good challenge and it's a good test for our team, which a lot of our guys are fired up about. I'm excited to play an ACC opponent and start league play early."
Senior Defensive Lineman Kendron Wayman
On the defensive side
"As a defensive line, we felt like we came out kind of slow, you just want to get going on that first play. But we watched the film, we know what we need to do. We need to lock in on the play in front of us instead of focusing on making a lot of plays and win what's right in front of you."
On containing the first quarter nerves in an ACC matchup
"I feel like that's what the first game is all about, fixing the mistakes that you made in the first game when you open the season and going up from there. It's about improving on what you showed out with in the first game."
On the transition from Week 1 to Week 2
"After that first game, that's where you really see how you are in the season, and how we come out as a team. We just go from there, improving on what we messed up on. For the entirety of camp, we were going against each other, so now we get to see it against another team. Having that first week was really important for us and now we'll improve and do better."
On the performance of younger players in the second half
"I know a lot of the players that got in during the second half, that was their first time being in the game that much so that gives them good experience. Then when we watch film, they can improve upon and hopefully be better for next week or the rest of the season when the opportunity comes.
On preparing for Virginia quarterback Anthony Colandrea
"A lot of cage awareness (keeping contain) is important for us because we see how he had some explosive runs at the beginning of the game. It was all about fixing the cage, stopping him on the run and being able to stand on that."
Senior Defensive Back Evan Slocum
On how he evaluates the defensive performance against NC A&T
"This week we are really focusing on tackling and our run fits. That's going to be a really big part of this next game coming up. We gave up over 100 yards rushing last week. That was one of our focuses coming into the game, but we didn't execute. We are definitely executing in practice and really focusing on it."
On what he sees from Virginia on film regarding the run defense
"It's a lot more quarterback run, so there will probably be an extra blocker in the box. We have to really account for that extra guy on defense to make that tackle on the quarterback."
On how he evaluates Virginia quarterback Anthony Colandrea
"He has definitely grown since last year. I know that he is a confident player, so we just have to execute and play our game."
Ahead of their 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
"We're looking forward to hosting Virginia this weekend for what is going to be a really important game for both teams.This is also the Gold Rush game to benefit Childhood Cancer research. The Open the Gate honoree is Dr. Lindsay Thompson who is a professor and doctor at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist. Lane Patrick was at our practice on Sunday, he's a young man who'll serve as the honorary coin toss. Our team had a chance to meet him and be around him and his family, which is always a rewarding experience. That experience makes our players appreciate their health and all the good fortune they have. Wrapping up North Carolina A&T, those are our games that we're expected to win and we're expected to win them in a certain way.
"There were positives, after we got off to a slow start, we did some pretty good things on offense. I was very happy with our red zone offense. We struggled the year before against Elon, that was kind of a sign of things to come for the year, so it was nice to see us get off to a good start in the red zone. We scored touchdowns down there on every drive except for a two minute drive, and defensively we tightened down in the second half. Clearly there's a lot of things that we have to get better at. We got off to a very slow start and on offense we had too many missed opportunities for explosive plays. There were really four post balls that were catchable balls that we needed to make those plays.
"We had too many penalties. We didn't have four false starts. We just have the two, but we had a holding and crackback block and on defense I'm really disappointed that we didn't defend the run better. Now the positive is the ball didn't get over our head. We didn't give up explosive pass plays, but the tackling and the run fits clearly need to get cleaned up. Overall, our special teams were pretty good. We had the two penalties on the one play, but other than that, we punted the ball well. It was good to see Matt Dennis get his kicks. But, it was far from the clean game that we wanted to play and we need to get better in a hurry with Virginia coming to town. If you look at Virginia, Coach Elliot's been there now for three years.
"He knows the ACC well coming from Clemson. The first year they struggled and they had the tragedy that occurred and didn't even end up finishing the season. And then last year they were 3-9, but a very competitive 3-9. They had five games that they lost by a touchdown or less, four of those games they lost by a field goal or less. So again, if you look at their season, they beat William & Mary, they had a good win over North Carolina, and they had a good win over Duke, and those were two good football teams. In overtime they lost to Miami, so a bunch of games that they lost by 1-3 points. Going through our program building here, I look back to our '14 and '15 seasons that in both years we won three games, but in '15 we were much more competitive than we were in '14.
"Then we returned all these players that started to learn how to win, and Virginia's right at that point that they've got a ton of players back. They've got 16 starters back on offense and defense, they have the entire offensive line back that started last year. They're very experienced, and they've got some really good skill. For example, [Malachi] Fields is a really good player, he was their second leading receiver a year ago; he's 6-foot-4, 220. They got a couple of transfers, one from Carolina and one from Kent State that have really made them better. They got Chris Tyree out of Notre Dame, who we did not want to kick to a year ago. Kobe Pace is back as a tailback, who played three years at Clemson. They got a couple of transfers from Clemson and Harvard at tight end, and their quarterback makes them go. Colendera is one of those quarterbacks that you got to defend the play and if you defend the play then you've got to defend the rest of it.
"And some of the biggest plays are just him scrambling around. They'll do a lot of design runs with him, they'll run – they love the stretch play. They've got a great boot game, they formation you, they trade in motion, they create all different types of three level boots and he's always a run threat, so it's tricky. You got to have your eyes in the right place, you've got to be able to have an inside quarterback player, an outside quarterback player. And even if you do that, he can make you miss. Defensively they bring back a lot of good players too, like all-ACC player Jonas Sanker and Antonio Clary who's back from an injury. Those guys are excellent, excellent safeties in terms of getting the ball down on the ground. At corner, they really upgraded themselves in the transfer portal. They got a player from Robert Morris, Michigan, and Penn.
"They got a guy from Akron who plays nickel for them and most of their front is back, including their linebackers. One was a freshman All-American last year, Kam Robinson. James Jackson was their second leading tackler a year ago and they've got some good guys up front; Kam Butler's back from injury.
"I just view this as kind of like two similar teams that maybe didn't have the season they wanted a year ago. Last year we lost three games by five points or less, they lost four games by three points or less. We have 16 starters back on offense and defense and they've got starters back. This is a really, really big game for both football teams, so I'm glad we're home. I have a lot of respect for Coach Elliot, we are both on the AFCA board together, as the two ACC representatives. He's a man of integrity and cares about his players and is building the UVA program in a very good way, so they'll end up having a good season. We need to play well at home to make sure that that doesn't start here this Saturday."
On having the early conference game
"We have now 17 teams and all these different time zones and pre existing contracts for out of conference games. I mean, I would not want to be the ACC schedule maker and to have a big game at home the second weekend on national television. So if this game gets us more exposure then that's a good thing."
On the inconsistent tackling
"I've been doing this for a lot of years. I don't ever remember a game one that you tackled the way you wanted to Cam. It's always a little bit of that balance of how much tackling can you do in camp if you want to get your football team ready, but you don't want to end up down nine starters. And it's always a balance and sometimes I look at quite frankly, who the opening game is and if you open with a Clemson or you open with Florida State, you're probably going to tackle a lot more. I ran the risk of we tackled, you probably tackled as much as we have the last two or three years, but I didn't overdo it again just because we got to keep our guys healthy here. Last year at the end of the season we were playing with a thin crew and I didn't want to start the year thin, so I was going to be a little bit on the risk averse side of trying to keep our guys healthy and hoping that if we missed a few tackles game one that we'd be able to survive it and find a way to win and we'll be a better tackling team this week.
"Just because so many of those tackles for guys just game one jitters just over pursuing things, not necessarily misfitting them, but just you play that game one and there's always those anxiety and jitters and you have those drops on the posts that those guys can make those plays 15 times over. But now the games and front of fans with the score being kept on TV and it's the old analogy of the free throw, right? A guy can step there and practice and it's the same shot 15 feet away, but give him a one-on-one down one with two seconds left in the game with 15,000 people there and the percentage isn't the same. So I'm hoping that we just got some of the game speed and we have guys that are good tacklers now. Nick Andersen, he tackled really well. Why is that? Well, Nick's played a lot of football for us, so a lot of the guys that struggled with it were guys that were kind of playing for the first time or playing the first time for Wake Forest. You're never going to have a game where you don't miss tackles. But most games, if you can keep the missed tackles in single digits, you're probably going to be okay. But there's no question we had too many."
On Deuce Alexander handling situations well
Clawson: "Even last year when we played NC State, he went out there and made plays and he gets out there and he played really well and he did a great job on special teams too. He watched him on the punt team. He was outstanding. If you watched the effort he made on the punt return. But you saw the Demond Claiborne effort play. But then on the punt return, if you look at Deuce and Rashaun Tongue, the two efforts that they made, and that's just his nature. Even last year in the NC State, if you remember the pick, he's the one guy who tried to track it down. His instinct is to go."
On Demond Claiborne maturing on the field and taking care of blocking both in pass protection but also down the field for his teammates
Clawson: "Well, Demond has matured in so many ways since he got here. He's matured as a football player and when he first got here, say he was a really good running back with his hands on the ball, but the other part of the game, the Pass Pro, the RPO stuff when he didn't get the ball and now he's become really good at that. And we made a big point the night before the game of what do we want the identity of Wake Forest football? And we've had our good teams, we've had those type of effort plays show up consistently. If you look at Demond's play, we had a very similar play in 2017 with Arkeem Byrd that we hit Tabari Hines against NC State and Arkeem by came off the RPO and sprinted 50 yards down the field and had a block that Tabari kept his feet and led to a touchdown in the NC State game.
"We had the Demetrius Kemp play against Florida State 2018, the Justin Strnad play that he ran from behind and caused the strip and Demetrius Kemp and covered the fumble. And we just said these are the type of plays that when people put on Wake Forest football, we want our effort to just scream off the film. And I challenge you guys to put as many of those plays on film as you possibly can. And we had 'em, the punt return, the Demond play, there was another play that they ran a screen in the backside pursuit was exactly what he wanted it to be. And to me that's just another sign that Demond is all in. And when you put that play up for his teammates and his teammates see that type of effort, how do you not want to block for that guy? You know what I'm saying?
"So that's part of his evolution of maturity as a football player that a lot of skilled guys, they think it's about getting the ball and catching passes and hope at a certain point they figure out it's about team success and all the little things they can do and he's going to make plays. He's an extremely talented running back and we know he's going to make plays, but when the player of his ability makes an effort play like that, those are the goosebump moments for me. But there's a guy that is now, and if you're in and you're going to run a perimeter run and how do you not want to block for that guy that just made that effort play for you? And we had a lot of those on tape. I mean I put four or five of them on to show the team in the Sunday meeting, but there was a lot more. We didn't have a hard time finding effort plays."
On how he rated the team on third down defense
"Our third down defense was good. We were 9-for-13. So that was good. Again, you say, okay, let's not let the ball over our head and let's get off the field on third down. And we did those two things and maybe at times we didn't commit enough guys to the box to stop the run, but we really felt that if we could just force them to snap the ball again and we had some guys playing in the secondary for the first time, we didn't want to give up double moves. Jamari made his second start home Blue, his first start for Wake Forest, Jaxson, Mull, C'Darius Kelly was out there for the first time and it's just like, don't try to do too much, do your job count that your teammate is going to do his job and that's how you play winning football.
"You have eleven guys on the same page. And so did we miss some tackles? Yeah, but those missed tackles would result in even 10-yard plays. Usually those aren't the plays that are going to get your beat now. I mean I'll say this A &T, they're better and they've got some good skill guys and the tailbacks a good player. Those receivers are good. Their quarterback's a good player. I'd be very surprised that they're not a lot more competitive in the CAA this year. But again, take it and try to get better from it.
On getting Donavon Greene back
"Well, the one play he made on the screen, I was so happy for him because you could just see when he scored, how excited he was. And he's had a tough two years. And the takeaway from the game is the best players have to make plays. And for us, Taylor Morin, Donavon Greene, Demond Claiborne, Deuce Alexander — those four guys made plays and they made dynamic plays. And now the challenge is as the level of competition goes up, we need those same guys to make those same plays. And now it gets harder. Virginia will have a better defensive line so the pocket will get tighter. We won't have as much time. Virginia will have a better secondary, so the coverage will be tighter. The level of execution will have to get better against a better football team. But to have Donavon Greene back is huge. Donavon Greene, when he's right and he's a hundred percent he's locked in, is as gifted and as talented as any receiver we've had during my time. And that includes guys playing in the NFL."
On shuffling the offensive line during the game last week
"That's our plan moving forward. We want to rotate the three guards. We're going to rotate the three tackles at some point and we'd like to give Luke a break. We want to play seven or eight guys and we'd like to do that all year. If we can do that , and we get to week 8-10 a little healthier and we're a little bit more of a fresh football team that's going to help us also on injuries."
On defending the UVA run game
"Well, we've got the fit runs better. When you play a team like Virginia with what they do, your eye discipline is really important with all their emotions and different formations and the boot game and the zone lead game, what they'll do is they give you all this window dressing and bang, they just hit the ball right down the middle and all of a sudden there's a 15 yard a gap run. And so having good gap control, having our eyes in the right place and then down in the football is going to be really important. Yeah, again, you look at 'em, they have 28 seniors or grad students in their two-deep. Every week I break down how many juniors and seniors are they playing with? How many freshmen and sophomores? And their breakdown is they've got 38 junior, seniors and grad students. So this is an older football team."
On the two-minute timeout and if it changes how he manages the end of game, end of half situations
"Absolutely. So I have a friend who's an NFL head coach and they have someone that they're basically devoted to doing this and you were able to do a little clinic and text them back and forth of how to manage it. And it's different how you manage the end of the game now is different because of the two minute time out.
"When I walk up and down the sideline, you'll see a guy behind me that has all these plastic sheets going them. And a lot of those have to do, I have the offensive game plan, the defensive game plan, special teams game plan. And a lot of it is clock management stuff, how to manage the end of the half, when there is a timeout at the end of the game. What if you're down one score? What if you're down two scores? It's a whole different strategic element to it. And so for 24 years I've been doing it one way and I've kind of had all these automatics and even when you can take a knee at the end of the game is different now. You used to be able to take a knee with the team, had no time out and it was 2:06 or 2:08, you just take three knees. Now you can't do that. Now you've got to run a play. And so yeah, I have somebody that helps me with it, but I also, for those last minute things, that sheet is right in front of me the whole time. I'm staring at that thing. And it also helps that our offensive coordinator now can communicate directly with coordinators. So that's been really helpful as well."
Junior Offensive Lineman Luke Petitbon
On what the game film showed from the North Carolina A&T game that will help the team for next week.
"The [North Carolina] A&T game was a good Week One test for us. That we showed a lot of good things. Obviously, with Week One games you are going to get a lot that you need to work on, especially when you start playing ACC teams like Virginia this week. There were definitely some good things on tape. We were finishing well, hustling down the field, and playing hard. There are some technical things that can be cleaned up that can help us moving forward this season."
On blocking for the running backs
"It's a great feeling when you are blocking someone and you see your running back burst open for a big gain. It's awesome. When we take ownership, we do our job, and we get a hat on a hat. When we get Demond has got one man to beat, we like our chances with Demond running it. Same thing with Tate. Tate's a different style of [running] back, but he's a back where if we block our guys and we get him one-on-one with a safety, he's got every opportunity to run that guy over or stiff arm him. The o-line takes a lot of pride blocking for both those guys."
On the matchup against Virginia.
"We've been watching tape on Virginia and getting into it early this week. It's a great challenge. Any ACC team and any ACC opponent poses a great challenge. Guys that have played here know that any time you get into an ACC game it's a four-quarter fist fight and we're prepared for it. Virginia is no easy task and we're preparing really hard for it."
On having an ACC game early in the season
"It's a good challenge and it's a good test for our team, which a lot of our guys are fired up about. I'm excited to play an ACC opponent and start league play early."
Senior Defensive Lineman Kendron Wayman
On the defensive side
"As a defensive line, we felt like we came out kind of slow, you just want to get going on that first play. But we watched the film, we know what we need to do. We need to lock in on the play in front of us instead of focusing on making a lot of plays and win what's right in front of you."
On containing the first quarter nerves in an ACC matchup
"I feel like that's what the first game is all about, fixing the mistakes that you made in the first game when you open the season and going up from there. It's about improving on what you showed out with in the first game."
On the transition from Week 1 to Week 2
"After that first game, that's where you really see how you are in the season, and how we come out as a team. We just go from there, improving on what we messed up on. For the entirety of camp, we were going against each other, so now we get to see it against another team. Having that first week was really important for us and now we'll improve and do better."
On the performance of younger players in the second half
"I know a lot of the players that got in during the second half, that was their first time being in the game that much so that gives them good experience. Then when we watch film, they can improve upon and hopefully be better for next week or the rest of the season when the opportunity comes.
On preparing for Virginia quarterback Anthony Colandrea
"A lot of cage awareness (keeping contain) is important for us because we see how he had some explosive runs at the beginning of the game. It was all about fixing the cage, stopping him on the run and being able to stand on that."
Senior Defensive Back Evan Slocum
On how he evaluates the defensive performance against NC A&T
"This week we are really focusing on tackling and our run fits. That's going to be a really big part of this next game coming up. We gave up over 100 yards rushing last week. That was one of our focuses coming into the game, but we didn't execute. We are definitely executing in practice and really focusing on it."
On what he sees from Virginia on film regarding the run defense
"It's a lot more quarterback run, so there will probably be an extra blocker in the box. We have to really account for that extra guy on defense to make that tackle on the quarterback."
On how he evaluates Virginia quarterback Anthony Colandrea
"He has definitely grown since last year. I know that he is a confident player, so we just have to execute and play our game."
Players Mentioned
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