There are two plausible ways to look at what happened Saturday night at Allegacy Stadium. There is the take that says, “Hey, it’s a new coaching staff, new system, and new players, so a win is a win.” And there is a different angle that says, “Holy cow. All that Spring camp. All that Fall camp. And a 10-9 win over Kennesaw State is all we got for that?” There is also a third take that says some of both is possibly correct. Here is what Wake Forest had to say after the Kennesaw State win.
What Wake Forest Said
Nick Anderson
The defensive back was correct when he said the Wake Forest defense took some hits early on. Kennesaw State was running plays with only burning 6-7 seconds off the plat clock. So the pace was fast, and the chunks of yards being picked up were significant.
“We learned to settle down,” he said after the game. “We got punched in the mouth early. I think we did a good job of not getting too high, not getting too low, not getting rattled.”
He added that it was the experience of the defense that allowed the unit to settle in. KSU had 200 total yards of offense in the first half and only 107 in the second half.
Anderson said he was not worried about the lack of production on offense with so much of it being new, and star running back Demond Claiborne being out for most of the game. “Tonight, the defense held them to nine points. And there will be times the offense is going to score 40 and the defense is going to give up 39.”
Robby Ashford
The quarterback is at his fourth school in six years, so he has seen a lot and done a lot in his college football time. Still, he pointed out some unknowns early on.
“It wasn’t a pretty game overall. It wasn’t how we expected to come out and play,” he said. “We had a good week of practice. We felt great. It was just a lot unknown going into that game with a DC who’s been overseas the past two years.”
He was referring to Marc Mattioli, the KSU defensive coordinator. Mattioli spent the last two seasons as a head coach in Paris in the European Football League. Wake head coach Jake Dickert assured the media last week that he had watched plenty of film on Mattioli’s team, so we are not sure where the surprises came in.
Ashford also took the first approach, saying, “It’s not ideally how we expected to win. A win is a win. We’re 1-0.”
What happens next with Western Carolina coming to town was clear to Ashford. “We know we can’t have too many more of these,” he said, referring to the lack of production on offense.
Jake Dickert
We covered the head coach’s post-game press conference to a great extent on Friday night. He was not happy with the early going of the game, citing, “A lot of undisciplined play in the first half.”
He did intend to project an air of confidence in saying the team would be better in eight days, from Friday’s game, because they went through that tough early experience.
Dickert talked about the running game in the absence of all-conference rusher Demond Claiborne. He said, as some coaches do, that it is “next man up.” He applauded the efforts of Ty Clark in particular. “Let’s give credit, let’s focus on Ty Clark, coming in, picking up the slack, running his tale off.” But there is more depth to the running back issue than next man up. Take out Ashford’s rushing stats, because quarterbacks get messed over by having sacks count against their rushing yardage. The adjusted stat line is 88 yards rushing for the team on 29 carries for a three-yard per carry average. Clark had 37 yards on 11 carries. Jamario Clements had 26 yards on 11 carries.
He called the play of his new quarterback “efficient.” Dickert noted that Ashford did not turn the ball over, but also did not produce as well as he would have wanted on some key plays in the game.
Dickert will be meeting with the media again on Monday after having reviewed the game film from Friday night in thorough detail.
Main Image: Tony Siracusa
