An unrealistic pre-season outlook for the first month of the season for Wake Forest would have been a 3-1 record. A 2-2 mark would have been easy to be expect. But now Wake has to leave the comfort zone of Winston-Salem with a 1-3 record. They are six points away from the lofty 3-1. But it is the teams that lose those close ones that count the point differential as some sort of bar they nearly cleared. So let’s see what Wake Forest said after another close loss Saturday night, this one to the Sun Belt’s Louisiana Ragin Cajuns.
Dave Clawson
During the week, he said a significant point of focus was fixing the issues in the defensive secondary. He has frequently repeated that he expected more of last year’s players to be back. DaShawn Jones transferring during the Spring portal window was a blow to the depth chart. The plan has been to try to simplify the schemes in the secondary. Based on Saturday’s performance, it’s not going so well. He was asked about it in the post-game press conference.
“You can only be so simple,” Clawson said. He repeated about how much of the secondary got there during the Summer and has not had enough time to work together. “They’re giving effort. They’re trying. They are just playing this level of football for the first time ever. Sometimes the game goes too fast for them and there’s just nobody else to put in.”
Clawson didn’t put the entire onus on the secondary. He said there was not a good enough pass rush from the defensive line and said he didn’t think the linebackers played well in the first half. “The secondary is always going to be the one where it’s most noticeable. Because when they screw up, it’s touchdowns.” He added, “I have a hard time right saying anyone on defense played well.”
He also reiterated how they tried to get help via the portal during the off-season. “That’s an expensive problem to fix. And when you don’t have much money, it’s hard to fix it.” He later added, “We recruited what we could afford.”
In terms of the game Saturday, Clawson said, “These losses, they gut you. They absolutely gut you. They’re hard. I’m disappointed that our program is not in a better spot.”
Hank Bachmeier
The sixth-year quarterback has notoriously taken losses hard, going back to his days at Boise State. It was visibly painful Saturday night.
“It definitely eats you, because I think we a really good frickin’ team,” he said in a hushed tone Saturday night. But you’ve got to be able to pull these out. These are the type of games you have to win.”
He was asked, with his history of taking losses hard, how he gets to the next page. “It really hurts right now. So, I kind of sit on it for a little bit.” Bachmeier said he tries not to stew on it for too long because it is not healthy. He does have the friendly face of his Great Pyrenees dog, Harley to go home to. He says he takes her for a walk and thinks about life and it helps cleanse the mental and emotional palate. “It’s over now and you can’t let the past predict the future.”
Bachmeier threw his first interception of the season Saturday night. It was on a pass that bounced off receiver Horatio Fields. The quarterback has had a well-deserved reputation of trying to thread needles that would have been better left alone. That has not been the case this season. He has hit the thousand-yard passing mark earlier than at any point in his college career. Bachmeier also has the second-highest completion percentage of his college career. He credits the coaching staff for their faith in him. “It’s a great honor and credit to the play calling.”
“I think for us to be successful and push through this is we’ve got to be together and go to work.”
Nick Anderson
Going back to the issue of the defensive secondary, the issue may be a little more complex than what Clawson described above. The staff has tried to “simplify” the defense. But Anderson said there was more to it.
“We had a little discrepancy in getting the signal again. It’s something that each week we have to work on.”
Yes, you “heard” him use the word again. “It’s happened several times,” he said Saturday after the game. “We’ve come up with different ways to try to fix it. Obviously, we’ve got to find some more ways to try to fix it.”
Anderson the thing the players have to guard against is a fracturing of the locker room, which tends to happen during losing seasons.
More Clawson
That brings us to the elephant in the room. This was game four of Wake’s season. Anyone who has played in each of them is at the maximum allowed if they want to hold on to the redshirt season. While that may sound like a foreign concept at Wake in the “middle” of the season, it happened at several schools last week. Players shut down their season in order to maintain the year of eligibility and go into the portal.
So, it had to be asked. With the team struggling, and many having played their four games, does Clawson expect to be able to maintain the roster as is for the rest of the season and is he having to work on that right now?
“If a guy after four games wants to quit, he’s going to quit. Those guys have to make individual decisions,” Clawson said. He is hopeful of a particular element that will keep that from happening. “One thing here is we’ve never overpromised and underdelivered. I don’t think there is one player on our roster that would ever say, ‘I was told I was going to get A, B, and C,’ and we didn’t deliver A, B, and C.”
He said he is confident the school has honored its commitments to the players. “But by the point they come to you with it, their decisions already done.”
The Demon Deacons go on the road for the first time next weekend to NC State. Clawson was too hurt by the loss Saturday to talk about that game but said he would be ready to move on by Sunday. Bachmeier said a road game can often be useful for rallying the team together.
Photo courtesy: Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images
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