Building The Phoenix Up<\/h3>\n
Still, Clawson did his best sales pitch on the game. \u201cElon is coming off a great season. They made the FCS playoffs. They made the Top 20 in the final poll,\u201d he said. He talked about how the offensive line has experience with more than 100 combined starts. And he pointed out that, \u201cOn defense, they were really good a year ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
All well and good. But gone is starting quarterback Matthew McKay<\/strong>,\u00a0who was a 61% passer and threw for just under 2,800 yards and 21 touchdowns. They also lost a receiving duo that accounted for nearly half of the team\u2019s total receptions and more than half of the total receiving yards.<\/p>\n Matthew Downing<\/a> replaces McKay. This is the fourth stop in Downing\u2019s college career. He has thrown a total of 61 passes in one year at Georgia, two at TCU, and one at Louisiana Tech. He had 356 yards passing and only three touchdowns against four interceptions prior to tearing his ACL in the fourth game of the season in 2022.<\/p>\n Expect the Phoenix to come with a heavy run game. Jalen Hampton<\/strong> is in his second year at Elon after being at Virginia Tech for two seasons. He rushed for 1,053 yards and 10 touchdowns last season.<\/p>\n Clawson talked about the transition in his own program. \u201cWe have 11 new starters. We are inexperienced, but we\u2019re not young.\u201d Typical of Clawson\u2019s teams over the last few years, the starting line-up is chock-full of guys who are in their fourth and fifth year at Wake Forest and have been waiting for their chance to start. \u201cUnlike last year there is not the accumulated starts and experience across the board that we have had,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Still, with a game that appears on paper to be such a mismatch, it is fair to ask Wake\u2019s head coach what he anticipates he can learn about his team with this game. The response to our query came with a chuckle and a bit of a head shake. \u201cYou guys [the media], label it that way,\u201d he said. He added that in his perfect world, the FCS game would come at the end of the year when a roster of 63 players would be more worn down compared to his roster of 85 scholarship players. But then we got a real answer on expectations and the learning curve. \u201cMore than anything, I want to see clean football. “Game ones are always mistake games,\u201d Clawson explained. \u201cI don\u2019t want to see false starts. I want to see us be clean in the kicking game. And I\u2019d like to see us win the turnover battle.\u201d<\/p>\n With the Demon Deacons notoriously being able to put up a lot of points, eyes will be on the offense and new starting quarterback<\/a> Mitch Griffis.<\/a> He played well in his one start last year, ironically against an FCS opponent, VMI. But Clawson does not want to put it all on his fourth-year quarterback.<\/p>\n \u201cTo me, this year\u2019s team has to be more of a team,\u201d he said, pointing out that with Sam Hartman<\/strong>, A.T. Perry,<\/strong> and others, the expectation was that Wake Forest would win solely with its offense. \u201cI\u2019d like to see us win more as a team. I\u2019d like to see us have a more balanced offense. I am feeling that our defense is going to take a step forward.\u201d<\/p>\n Clawson also referred to this year\u2019s offensive line with high praise. \u201cMy expectation is that this group is as good as any group we have put out there.\u201d<\/p>\n Clawson historically identifies a number that he refers to as the \u201cover the line\u201d number. It is the number of players providing depth at all of the positions that he can plug in as needed. While last year the number was 51, this year he did not offer a specific number but was mostly optimistic with the results from camp. \u201cMy goal is to have a certain number at each position and then a total number. We probably have the total number, but the distribution maybe isn\u2019t the way you draw it up.\u201d<\/p>\n He specifically pointed out every position on offense as a positive in terms of depth. He likewise said the defensive line is not yet where he would like it to be in terms of comfort with the depth. \u201cBut I think we can make up for that with where we are at linebacker and safety.\u201d<\/p>\nA Lot of Snaps. Not A Lot of Starts<\/h3>\n
Balance and Depth<\/h3>\n
Change at Wideout<\/h3>\n
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