Michael Kern<\/a> Saturday. He finished 14 of 22 for 166 yards. And while some of his throws looked better, there was no real sign of a forward-moving offense.<\/p>\nOn the season, Griffis is throwing at a 59% completion rate. He has nine touchdowns and six interceptions. There are also fumbles, misreads, and poor decisions. This is not the pile on Griffis column. He is one of the more likable young men you\u2019ll meet on a football team. Even after losses, he faces the questions and tries to give sincere answers, something his predecessor was rarely compelled to do as QB1 last year.<\/p>\n
The Problems Are Spread Around<\/h3>\n But this is bigger than your likeability factor. It is also not all on him. An offensive line with plenty of game experience, if not starts, is playing poorly. The edge blocking, (including tight ends), has left both Griffis and Kern vulnerable on the outside. The inability of the running backs to pass protect consistently has made it a given that blitzes are going to come from everywhere. Combine all of those elements and you have no running game and have hung a quarterback out to dry when he was already having problems mastering the basic functionality of the offense. The poor passing game leads to a lack of opening for a running game. And the inability to run the ball leads to a defense with ears pinned back.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey see how we\u2019ve handled blitzes, and they blitzed the heck out of us,\u201d Clawson said Saturday of VA Tech\u2019s defensive scheme. It\u2019s pretty safe to say we have the defensive scheme for the opponents for the next six games. \u201cRight now, if you\u2019re playing us, you\u2019re going to make our quarterback beat you,\u201d Clawson added.<\/p>\n
The Defense Is Mostly Doing Its Job…For Now<\/h3>\n The Wake Forest defense has been modestly better this season. The Demon Deacons are 53rd<\/sup> in the country in total defense, giving up 359 yards per game. Last year they surrendered 406 per game. They have reduced the number of times they are getting beat deep and lowered the amount of explosive plays they give up. The defense kept Wake in the game against Clemson and VA Tech.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s not going to last. Not when the offense can\u2019t sustain drives and stay on the field, giving the defense a rest. And oh, by the way, the defense has yet to face the best of the best in ACC quarterbacks.<\/p>\n
The offense is bad. And the poor offense is even making the defense vulnerable. So where does Wake go from here before the season completely circles the drain?<\/p>\n
A Complete Assessment By Clawson Is Needed Before You Have Finished Reading This Article<\/h3>\n \u201cI don’t care about what anything was DESIGNED to do, I care about what it CAN do.\u201d<\/strong>– Ed Harris playing NASA flight director Gene Kranz in the movie Apollo 13.<\/p>\nClearly, you do not scrap an offense and start over in the middle of the season. The offensive schemes are what they are. But just as clearly, you cannot go through this week of practice thinking some band-aids are going to cover the gaping wounds.<\/p>\n
Clawson told the media Saturday that in the past when such issues have occurred, and they have, it is about stripping down the scheme to its useable parts. \u201cAnytime that I have been in this position of struggling, the answer is to do less, not more,\u201d he said. \u201cYou kind of say what are we doing well, and you try to build on that.\u201d When pressed, he acknowledged that it is going to take a lot of quick work to find what they are doing right, because it is not obvious at first glance.<\/p>\n
Receiver Taylor Morin<\/strong> said Saturday that Clawson had challenged the team in the locker room after the game. \u201cEither lay down and call it quits the rest of the season or you fight.\u201d Defensive back Malik Mustapha<\/strong> said the players need to, \u201cFind their \u2018Why,\u2019\u201d as in why they play football, why they go through the work and the hours, and why they want this.<\/p>\nClawson’s Role<\/h3>\n Clawson doesn\u2019t have to answer the \u201cwhy.\u201d His years climbing up the coaching ranks have already answered that. But he does have to answer the \u201chow,\u201d as in how did this happen. He is a historian of his own past. He is quickly able to recall years in his coaching jobs where similar instances occurred, no matter what they are.<\/p>\n
And maybe there is an answer in his history. Because right now, a roster full of fourth, fifth, and sixth-year players who have grown up in the system cannot run his offense well enough. They are all his recruits. At this point in his tenure, this can be a transition year. But it is not supposed to have to be a rebuild. Not with his veteran roster. And asking players to do something they can\u2019t do creates on-field issues. A coach is supposed to assess and judge the capabilities of those in the system and retool that system to their capabilities. The coach has to find the parts that still work. Presumably, that is how Clawson spent his Sunday.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\nPhoto courtesy:\u00a0 Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We have come to that point in the Wake Forest season where the record is split. The fan base is also split and any list of what is wrong with this team is both lengthy and will take longer to fix than anyone would like. What\u2019s wrong with Wake Forest turns out not to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":53161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_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":[2,7],"tags":[4817,1135,9362,8964,1249],"class_list":["post-53156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-acc","tag-acc-football","tag-dave-clawson","tag-malik-mustapha","tag-taylor-morin","tag-wake-forest-demon-deacons"],"modified_by":"Tony Siracusa, CFB Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53156","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=53156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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