Last year Wake Forest went into Fall camp with Mitch Griffis already ordained as the starting quarterback. It didn’t go well. Before that, it was a given that it was Sam Hartman’s job, and it went mostly well. So we are in relatively new territory as there is a Demon Deacons quarterback battle in camp.
Hank Bachmeier and Michael Kern are in the first week of camp competing for the starting quarterback job. They have totally different backgrounds, different college paths, and yet there they are on the practice field every day running the same offense while trying to distinguish themselves. All that with head coach Dave Clawson knowing the odds say he will need both of them this year. “I think 2021 might have been my only year here that we didn’t have to start different quarterbacks,” he said Monday.
Reason For a Change
Last year was about as bad as it gets for the quarterback spot at Wake. Griffis had been ordained the heir apparent to Hartman going back to Spring camp. The game proved to be too big and too fast for him. He eventually transferred to Marshall before leaving football altogether after Spring camp.
Clawson went to Kern during the Virginia Tech game. But he suffered a shoulder injury that kept him out for a month. And then there was Santino Marucci who had played multiple positions in his years at Wake Forest. He pulled out an exciting win in the closing minute against Pitt, but that was the peak for him as a Demon Deacon. Those three storylines are a significant part of why Wake was 4-8 last year.
Moving Foward
Fast forward to Fall camp 2024. Kern returns for his sixth year in apparently good health. Having spent his entire college football career at Wake, he presumably knows the offense as well as anyone…maybe ever. The key for him is the execution of that offense.
And then there is Bachmeier. Hailing from Southern California, he spent the first four years in college at Boise State, often playing in the snow and freezing temperatures on the “Smurf Turf.” He played last year at Louisiana Tech, where he had the highest completion rate of his career.
As Clawson stays with his renovated practice plans of running the live scrimmages on both fields simultaneously, it gives him the newfound luxury of running each quarterback with “ones” and with the “twos.” Ideally, it would give him a sense of who can command the offense and who can execute it.
Not Coach Speak, But a Real Competition
Last week at ACC media days, Clawson said this is a real and open competition. “We told Michael if he came back he’d have a chance to compete for the job. We told Hank if he came to Wake Forest he’d have a chance to compete for the job.” It is the play of the two that will determine the final decision as to the starter. And Clawson has said he will not create a false timeline to make that decision.
In his fill-in role last year, Kern threw a total of only 92 passes for 647 yards, four touchdowns, and two interceptions. It was the most activity he had seen at Wake. The year before, behind Hartman and Griffis he attempted only six passes. So with 2023 as his high water mark, he has a 60% career completion rate for 1,023 yards, five touchdowns, and two interceptions.
Bachmeier is more of a known entity on the national landscape. He was a four-star recruit coming out of Murrietta, CA near San Diego. He threw for more than 6,600 yards in four years at Boise State with 41 touchdowns and 19 interceptions. Last year at LA Tech, he completed a career-high 67% of his passes for 2,058 yards, 10 touchdowns and five interceptions.
The criticism of the stats in his career has been the touchdown touchdown-to-interception ratio. Bachmeier has a good arm and has been known to try to thread passes that are not “threadable.”
From The QB Perspective
We talked to both quarterbacks earlier this week. Kern, in his typical low-key fashion, called it fun and talked about “attacking it every day.” He expressly said he has complete faith in Clawson and offensive coordinator Warren Ruggiero to do whatever is needed to help Wake win games. “I trust that they are doing everything to make that happen,” he said. “And I am going to do my part to make that happen.”
He said during the Summer the quarterbacks were working out with the receivers at least three times a week.
Kern said he is learning a lot from Bachmeier. “Hank is really smart. He has played a lot of football, so I love having conversations with him in the film room,” he said. “He’s making me a better quarterback.
Bachmeier reciprocates those thoughts. “I ask him (Kern) a ton of questions. He’s been in the system for five years, so the guy knows everything there is to know about the offense,” Bachmeier said. “He’s got such a vast knowledge of the system.”
Bachmeier also lent credence to the reports that he had not been promised anything in terms of a starting role when he transferred to Wake Forest. “Coach Clawson has been completely transparent. Coach R has been completely transparent. And I completely understand that nothing is going to be given to me. I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
The Real Competition
Now the competition is not restricted to the football field. Last week we got wind of some team bonding events during the Summer that became competitions on their own. They took the form of teams being put together for bowling, wiffle ball, and other events. So how did Bachmeier and Kern do? The agreements end there.
Kern says he had the best wiffle ball on-base percentage on the team throughout the competition. Bachmeier was unimpressed. “We had the smallest team, (Michael Frogge, Tyler Mizzell, and Jaydn Girard with Bachmeier). We had the least amount of players and we went all the way to the championship with four guys. The other teams had nine guys. Our collective team was the best team.”
He refuted Kern’s claim that there were some disputable calls during the wiffle ball tournament. “All I’m saying is we had a Cinderella run,” Bachmeier claimed. Bachmeier’s team also won the Summer long bowling tournament, a claim not disputed by Kern. “So, if you look at the overall cup standings Team Frogge and Bachmeier was up there.”
With the season opener being at home against North Carolina A&T, we will likely see both quarterbacks trying to claim their stake that night as well.
