The strength of any team is to get over the bumps in the road without driving into the ditch. Wake Forest was delivered a blow over the weekend when they found out that the team’s leading returning receiver, Donavon Greene, will miss three to five months with a knee injury. So now what’s next for the Wake Forest receivers?
Donavon Greene Out
Greene injured his knee in the first practice of Fall camp last week. He came down on top of someone’s foot and his leg torqued. He had already put in the work to come back in 2022 after missing all of 2021 with a torn ACL. While this is not the same injury, it is the same knee. Demon Deacons head coach Dave Clawson said Monday that Greene had surgery over the weekend and was working on recovery before heading into physical therapy/rehab.
“Right now, we kind of plan on not having him. And if we get him back late [in the season], that would be a positive,” Clawson said Monday after practice. “It’s hard. He worked really hard this Summer. His strength levels, his speed, his quickness. He was locked in. It hurts, but his football career is not over.”
Greene was second to A.T. Perry last year in receiving yards with 642. He also had six touchdown receptions. For his Wake Forest career, he has 1,473 yards. The redshirt junior already used his redshirt year in 2019.
Options
From purely a football standpoint, the receiver room at Wake was probably the deepest on the roster. Jahmal Banks was just a few yards shy of Greene’s receiving totals last year. He probably deserved to be on the preseason all-conference team. Ke’Shawn Williams, Wesley Grimes, and Taylor Morin are among those who will fill in the workload. Clawson said there will also be opportunities for Horatio Fields and Walker Merrill to step into the rotation. Fields did not play last year but has had a good start to Fall camp. Merrill is a transfer from Tennessee. He was having a strong performance in the Spring before being slowed down by concussion protocols. He returned at full speed in the Fall.
Clawson said once Greene has gone through what he, Clawson, called a mourning period over the injury, he would welcome him back into the receiver room to help mentor and guide the players in the room.
Wide receivers coach Ari Confesor said Greene would lend value to the team in that role. “Donnie’s been a great player and a great leader. The guys look up to him. They have great camaraderie,” Confesor said. “We’re all hurt because we wanted for him to be out there with us. But he will still be around, which is great. He’s a leader in meetings.”
What’s Next?
Now the Demon Deacons head into the “what’s next?” stage. Confesor said now, “Everybody prepares as if they’re that guy.” He said moving players around to make up for the loss of Greene is an option. It’s possible, according to Clawson and Confesor, to see Morin on the outside from time to time instead of always in the slot. Clawson said you have to look at what this leaves you in certain positions when you move players around.
Confesor said his guys are ready for any of those eventualities. “When we teach guys the offense, we get them to understand what’s going on conceptually for that reason,” he told us. He emphasized that the goal was to have the best players on the field regardless of what position they normally play. Morin has played on the outside in the past, so that is an immediate fix and gives Williams more time in the slot.
Confesor said Williams was one of the strongest players on the team, even within his 5-10, 190-pound frame. “I’m expecting a big, great year from him. In the off-season, he did an unbelievable job transforming his body.”
The Williams Factor
Williams told us he understands that in the absence of Greene, he is going to be looked at to carry more of a leadership role this season. “I try to carry myself like a pro, in terms of taking care of my body, and coming out on the field and playing at a high level,” he said Monday. “As a veteran on the team, if I can encourage guys on the field, I just think it helps some of the younger players mature a lot faster.”
In terms of the off-season training he did that got such high praise from his position coach, Williams said it was about stepping up compared to last year. “There were opportunities that were missed last year and some of what could have been. I want to make that be this year,” he said. I don’t want any more nagging injuries and I want to take advantage of everything that I wasn’t able to last year.”
The Tennessee Transfer
Confesor is also very high on an addition to the receivers’ room. Merrill, the transfer from Tennessee has made quite an impression on his position coach. After a good start in Spring camp, he finished wearing the red, no-contact jersey for the last couple of weeks of camp due to a concussion. “He’s a guy who goes a hundred miles an hour,” Confesor said. “He’s a physical receiver and he’s always running full speed. He catches the football well, and runs really, really good routes. He’s just a really good competitor.”
There is an adjustment period for the offense when the players go out there and don’t see Greene on the field. Clawson said he is counting on the rest of the receivers working to the point where he has a large rotation of options, both on the outside and in the slot. He said even without Greene, that level of rotation will make for a better team.
Photo courtesy: James Guillory-USA TODAY Sports
