{"id":44220,"date":"2022-03-19T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-19T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=44220"},"modified":"2022-03-18T17:06:49","modified_gmt":"2022-03-18T21:06:49","slug":"44220-wake-forests-mindset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2022\/03\/19\/44220-wake-forests-mindset\/","title":{"rendered":"Wake Forest’s Mindset"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now that Spring camp is officially underway in Winston-Salem, it is time to put head coach Dave Clawson\u2019s theme for the season to the test. Last season he set forth the idea of going from good to great. By any appraisal within the Wake Forest spectrum, the Demo Deacons accomplished that. An 11-3 season, an ACC division title, and a post-season victory put the 2021 season in the rarified air of recent football history. Now the task is consistency and growth. Clawson\u2019s idea to accomplish that is to push Wake Forest\u2019s mindset throughout the season.<\/p>\n

The Mindset Message<\/h3>\n

Meeting with the media earlier this week<\/a>, Clawson said of his mindset theme that it was fine to relish in the success of last year, \u201cBut if our mindset is that we are still caught in those moments, then we\u2019re not going to grow and get better.\u201d He said the days of Wake Forest sneaking up on opponents as a surprise quality are likely in the past. The team is going to have to perform at a high level on a consistent basis.<\/p>\n

With a roster full of veteran returnees, he likely does not have to sell the message too hard, so much as make sure it gets implemented properly. You can already hear some of the recitations from the senior leaders in their answers to questions. The pitch is delivered. Now it just has to get executed.<\/p>\n

Hartman Looked To For Leadership<\/h3>\n

On the first day of 15 Spring camp workouts Thursday, fifth-year quarterback Sam Hartman said the early part of the work is shaking off the rust from not having played for a few months. \u201cThere\u2019s always room for improvement every day,\u201d Hartman said. \u201cYou can list the number of things I did well, list the number of things I did bad, and that\u2019s how it\u2019s going to be practice-wise for the rest of my career.\u201d<\/p>\n

Being viewed as a team leader means Hartman is expected to help carry the \u201cmindset\u201d message on the field and in the locker room. \u201cIt starts here. It starts with our whole mindset. Mindset is something we\u2019re going to keep saying that all year,\u201d he said Thursday after practice. \u201cI think the mindset for us is that every practice is important and winning every practice. We want to go one-for-one today, two-for-two tomorrow, three-for-three at our next practice. It\u2019s going to be all about the preparation and having the edge every day, coming out and competing and working hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mindset Progress<\/h3>\n

Clawson said he was pleased with the team\u2019s efforts on the first day back. \u201cWe purposely started Spring football late. You want them to miss it to the point they look forward to getting out here.\u201d With an experienced roster, there are timetables for getting everyone on the same page in a way that develops depth, a topic that is going to be a constant throughout the season. \u201cWhen the ones go against the ones, there\u2019s a certain installation schedule. It\u2019s a little slower for the twos and even slower for the threes,\u201d he said. \u201cEventually you hope those twos and those threes catch up to the level of the ones.\u201d He added that on offense there should already be a lot of retention from last season. But that with a new defense installed by incoming defensive coordinator Brad Lambert<\/strong>, there is going to be a learning curve in Spring.<\/p>\n

And what about the \u201cmindset\u201d at the beginning of camp? Clawson called it \u201cexcellent. \u201c He said, \u201cI think they came out here excited to be at practice, excited to be doing football. When the coaching was going on, they were staring in the coaches’ eyes and applying the coaching. We got better today.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Large Scale Task For the Defense<\/h3>\n

Fifth-year linebacker Ryan Smenda, Jr.<\/a> has the daunting task. He has to be a leader in the mindset category with younger players. And he is doing it while learning all over again with a new defensive coordinator, as well as a new position coach, (Glenn Spencer<\/strong>). \u201cThese guys are acting like sponges, all of us, absorbing and learning and wanting to get better,\u201d he said after practice Thursday. Smenda is embracing his role as a leader on the field but said the work ethic of his teammates is making his job a little easier. He said he is helping players get used to new assignments and schemes. \u201cThese guys, they love it so much that I don\u2019t have to tell them a second time because they already understand it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Demon Deacons resume Spring workouts Saturday with day two of 15 allowable workouts under NCAA rules. The Spring wraps up with the Spring game on April 16th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now that Spring camp is officially underway in Winston-Salem, it is time to put head coach Dave Clawson\u2019s theme for the season to the test. Last season he set forth the idea of going from good to great. By any appraisal within the Wake Forest spectrum, the Demo Deacons accomplished that. An 11-3 season, an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":44223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[8853,1135,8855,4207,1249],"class_list":["post-44220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-acc","category-featured","tag-brad-lambert","tag-dave-clawson","tag-glenn-spencer","tag-sam-hartman","tag-wake-forest-demon-deacons"],"modified_by":"Tony Siracusa, CFB Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}