Some positions for the Demon Deacons are seeing significantly more of a change than others. The Wake Forest wide receiver room is being greatly impacted by the new practice methods, and the extra work is greatly needed. It may not be as dire as that sounds. But certainly with a significant turnover in personnel, this is an optimal time to get everyone more reps.
Three of the team’s four leading receivers from 2023 are playing elsewhere this season, thanks to the transfer portal. The pass catcher who is probably the most physically gifted out of everyone, Donavon Greene, has not played football since the Fall camp of last year. He suffered an Achilles injury before the 2023 season started.
While he has had the surgery, and by all accounts recovered from the injury, he is not participating in this Spring camp. Head coach Dave Clawson says it is precautionary, that he is doing everything he can to make sure Greene is healthy this season. Greene has spent more time on the injured list than he has on an active roster over the last three years. But his physical gifts are undeniably valuable.
It’s not like Greene does not know the offense. As soon as everyone is comfortable, he will be a likely impact in the offense. In the interim, the snaps are going to a group of younger players who need to show up and show out if the Wake offense is going to succeed this season.
Fourth-year receiver Horatio Fields and second-year player Deuce Alexander are getting a chance to make their marks this Spring.
Fields had five catches for 54 yards in 2023. Alexander had only two receptions for 30 yards. But now they are going to be counted on, along with Greene, and veteran slot receiver Taylor Morin to make up for the 1,376 receiving yards that walked out the door with Jahmal Banks, Ke’Shawn Williams, and Wesley Grimes.
Receivers coach Ari Confesor is not lacking for confidence in the group. “We structured practice and did some things differently,” Confesor reminded us last week. “Everybody’s just headed full steam ahead. That’s what you like to see. Especially for the guys who have not gotten a lot of reps in the past.”
Confesor said running the live drills on two fields at the same time is getting each of the receivers an additional 20-25 reps per practice. “These guys are now getting so many more opportunities. Their heads are spinning, I’m sure. But as the practices go on, it starts slowing down for those guys.”
Confesor said the other thing the change in structure does is open the competition at the position. In previous years, a pecking order was well-known going into camp. Now, with so much work to go around, Confesor said the receivers are more engaged than before. “All Spring is about now is competition.” The second-year coach said that has charged up the younger guys who need to step in. “Deuce Alexander, he is a heckuva player. So now he is pushing Taylor Morin. There is competition all around, all over the field, and it’s nobody’s spot.”
Alexander said he is taking what he learned last year by watching so much in camp and trying to put it into practice now. “Last year I knew some, but I learned a lot from the older guys,” he told us this week. “But now it is my time so I’ve got to grow up and know how to do it.”
Confesor said Alexander had the physical ability last year but needed to learn how to play the game at a high level. “Now he looks like an older guy. He looks like a guy who has played the snaps,” Confesor said of his young receiver. “He’s starting to understand that you can’t just rely on your athletic ability. You have to be a student of the game.” Alexander says the biggest part of that is learning to read the defenses, at which he said he is confident he is succeeding.
It is notable seeing Greene coaching up the younger guys during receiver drills. Confesor said it is like having another coach out there. He said it helps having another voice, and from a guy who has done it on the field in recent years.
That’s not to say the success of the position is all going to rely on the younger guys. Morin, as a sixth-year player, is the prototypical player from the way the Wake system was. He got little work early on. But now in his sixth year, he is a team leader. And he knows it. “As a sixth-year guy, the leadership is important.”
That comes with some caveats. “I think there is a fine line between being an older player and coming off as a coach. I want the guys to know that I am a player who is in it with you.” He has the on-field credentials. After redshirting in 2019, Morin has put up more than 2,200 yards receiving to go with 19 touchdowns as a slot receiver.
He says his leadership role is less about telling the younger guys how to do their jobs and more about showing them instead. “By that I mean I’m setting the example. I’m holding myself to the highest standards,” he told us earlier this week. “That line of being in the fire with the guys is important to me as a leader.”
But he has also been doing this long enough to have been on the receiving end of veteran player guidance, and on the doling it out in the end. “Leadership is not one size fits all,” he said. “There’s different ways to get to different guys so it’s important for leaders to know that.”
He also knows he has a new quarterback in Hank Bachmeier who brings a different kind of leadership, now being at his third school. With quarterback Michael Kern out for the rest of Spring camp, Bachmeier’s presence looms large in the leadership category along with the returning Wake veterans. “He has had a bunch of experience from other places. That kind of presence is reassuring,” Morin said.
Morin is a big fan of the new system of running the drills simultaneously on both fields. “It simulates the speed of the game better. And in terms of getting more reps, we all need that no matter what year we are. It’s a very long season and getting everybody ready has been great.”
