Two teams in differing levels of disarray meet Saturday afternoon as Wake Forest and Syracuse try to salvage a season in the last week of the ACC schedule.
Wake Forest comes in at 4-7. If the Demon Deacons can get to 5-7, they have a better than decent chance of getting into a bowl game with the help of the Academic Progress Rate, (APR). There are enough bowl spots open that they just need a small handful of teams to not make the six-game eligibility marker for the post-season.
Changes and Challenges
Syracuse is 5-6 overall. If they win, they are bowl-eligible with no help needed. The situation for the Orange is ironic in that they have a self-determined path to bowl eligibility. Yet they fired head coach Dino Babers Sunday after nearly eight full seasons at the helm. Tight ends coach Nunzio Campenile is the interim head coach for the final week of the regular season, as well as any post-season play that comes Syracuse’s way. It’s not his first rodeo in this role. He was the interim head coach at Rutgers in 2019 when Chris Ash was fired three games into the season.
Syracuse is 91st in the country at 348 yards per game. The season has been somewhat typical of recent years for the Orange. They started off 4-0 against a mostly inferior schedule. Then as they got into conference play, the injuries and the losses both mounted. Quarterback Garrett Shrader has been limited the last few weeks by a shoulder injury. Babers had been going to different variations of a Wildcat formation with running back LeQuint Allen and converted tight end Dan Villari taking a large portion of the snaps.
With the offense in a hole, the defense has done little to help the cause. Syracuse is 63rd in the country in total defense, giving up more yards than they gain. Thus, the losing six of the last seven.
Enough Challenges of Their Own
Wake Forest head coach Dave Clawson said Tuesday that the unknown of the Syracuse offense can be a challenge to prepare for. “I really don’t know what’s going on with them at quarterback,” he acknowledged. “They kind of broke out a lot of the wildcat stuff,” he said referring to the sets with Allen and Villari. “They sometimes have a quarterback on the field. And they broke it out against Pitt and had a lot of success with it.” He said his defense is preparing for two different quarterbacks and will adjust based on personnel they see from one play to the next.
Wake has its own issues to fix on offense. If being ranked 91st in the country, (Syracuse), is not good, it is still better than the Demon Deacons who are 107th in the country at 322 yards per game. Clawson replaced starting quarterback Mitch Griffis (who had been the ordained heir apparent to Sam Hartman going all the way back to Spring camp) with backup Michael Kern last week. It will again be Kern in Syracuse on Saturday.
Clawson is also having to dig deep into what is vexing his team after seven straight years of bowl games. “If you just look at it, we’re just probably across the board maybe not as good as we’ve been the last few years,” he said Tuesday. “Sometimes players just need to get experience. And sometimes when you’re in a winning program when they play for the first time, they find out it’s harder.” He noted that the team is still working hard at practice and he believes there is still talent on the roster. “I thought we’d take a little bit of a step back this year just because of what we lost. I’m disappointed we took as big of a step back as we have.”
Changing the Kicking Game
He acknowledged the team has holes that need to be filled before Spring camp. There will not be an ordained starting quarterback. Spring camp will be an open competition for whichever players return from this year’s roster, as well as anyone who may come in the transfer portal.
Another position where will see a new face this week is placekicker. Matthew Dennis was 14 of 16 on field goals for the first eight weeks of the season. He hasn’t made a field goal since, going 0-4 in the last three weeks. He essentially has a case of what golfers call “the yips.” Clawson said the effort is there, but it has become a mental challenge that has caused his mechanics to falter. He is not giving up on Dennis, but there will be a different field goal kicker this week. “Clearly there is talent there,” Clawson said. But he wants Dennis to take a mental break. He will travel with the team. But Caleb Carlson and Tyler Black will spend the week competing for Saturday’s job.
“I just want to win a game right now,” Clawson said getting right to the bottom line. “It’s been a while.” He said he is eager for his players to celebrate success in a post-game locker room one more time this season. If the other things we mentioned swing correctly, he will get two more chances, including Saturday.
