{"id":63243,"date":"2024-08-31T12:04:44","date_gmt":"2024-08-31T16:04:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=63243"},"modified":"2024-08-31T17:30:32","modified_gmt":"2024-08-31T21:30:32","slug":"what-wake-forest-said-after-the-win-over-nc-at","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2024\/08\/31\/what-wake-forest-said-after-the-win-over-nc-at\/","title":{"rendered":"What Wake Forest Said After the Win over NC A&T"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Demon Deacons did what they were expected to do Thursday night<\/a>. They beat up an undermanned North Carolina A&T team. It took a while to get their bearings and perform at a good level. But get their bearings, they did. So then it\u2019s time to find out what Wake Forest said after the game, to dig into the many, many post-game thoughts.<\/p>\n

Dave Clawson<\/h3>\n

Head coach Dave Clawson talked about the thing that plagues many teams in week one. \u201cWe got off to a little bit of a slow start,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought offensively we left some explosive plays on the field. I think we dropped like three or four post routes in the first half.\u201d The fix to that? He said the rhythm found in the second half came from, \u201cOur best offensive players made plays.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hank Bachmeier<\/h3>\n

Quarterback Hank Bachmeier put it another way. \u201cOnce we settled in, it was just about doing our job every single play and executing your assignment.\u201d And speaking of players making plays, eight different receivers got passes from Bachmeier and Michael Kern. \u201cThat\u2019s the beauty of the offense,\u201d Bachmeier said. \u201cIt\u2019s the ability to distribute the ball to any receiver at any possible time on the play.\u201d It\u2019s easy to enjoy the offense when you go in and the first play is for you to chuck in downfield. That\u2019s pretty fun, even with the dropped ball.<\/p>\n

The offense will also flow better if there is going to be a consistent running game. It\u2019s too soon to make much of the stats against an FCS team that is in rebuild mode. That\u2019s why seeing it with your eyes tells you Demond Claiborne<\/a> had a terrific game. Seventeen rushes for 135 yards and a touchdown are the backup for what your eyes saw. \u201cHe\u2019s a stud,\u201d said Bachmeier. \u201cTate [Carney] as well I thought ran really hard.\u201d Nine carries for 40 yards and a touchdown are the backup for Bachmeier\u2019s view of it.<\/p>\n

Demond Claiborne<\/h3>\n

When the team is in camp and not scrimmaging full contact, Claiborne has a habit of running the rest of the way to the end zone, even after he has been \u201ctouched down.\u201d He says it is his way of working to make practice harder than the games. He also said the stats will say what they say, but he wants to see the film to assess how he did with his blocking.<\/p>\n

Clawson said after the game that if Wake is going to have a good season, the running game will need to step up. \u201cWhen he\u2019s healthy, he\u2019s a stud.\u201d We have no evidence that Clawson and Bachmeier rehearsed the \u201cstud\u201d assessment of Claiborne. \u201cIf we\u2019re going to win this year, he\u2019s got to rack up a lot of hundred-yard games and make a lot of big plays.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taylor Morin’s Turning Point<\/h3>\n

Clawson said one of the turning points of getting out of the slow start was the 73-yard punt return for a touchdown by Taylor Morin. We asked Morin what he saw when he took the punt and looked upfield. \u201cA lot of black shirts in the right places.\u201d He credited the scheme for the return, but added, \u201cThat play doesn\u2019t happen without my teammates out there, busting their rear.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conor O\u2019Neill of Deacons Digest<\/em> pointed out to Morin that it was his 65th<\/sup> punt return in his Wake Forest career. It was Morin\u2019s first touchdown on a punt return. \u201cI\u2019ve had a couple of big ones, but never got into the end zone. That one felt good for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Better Than Covering Deion’s Press Conferences<\/h3>\n

Bachmeier had the better game between the two quarterbacks. But Clawson said Kern did not get the opportunities they had planned. The time of possession between the two teams was lopsided in favor of North Carolina A&T, (36:21 to 23:39). So when we asked if the competition was over? Clawson grinned. \u201cI mean Tony, come on. Do you think I\u2019m going to come to a press conference after a game and tell you what we\u2019re going to do?\u201d Hey, we had to ask, right? \u201cI knew you\u2019d ask the question though,\u201d he said good-naturedly. It\u2019s what we do when we need to hear what the Demon Deacons are saying.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"What
Photo courtesy: Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Demon Deacons did what they were expected to do Thursday night. They beat up an undermanned North Carolina A&T team. It took a while to get their bearings and perform at a good level. But get their bearings, they did. So then it\u2019s time to find out what Wake Forest said after the game, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":63246,"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":[102,1135,5224,8925,1249],"class_list":["post-63243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-acc","tag-acc","tag-dave-clawson","tag-hank-bachmeier","tag-michael-kern","tag-wake-forest-demon-deacons"],"modified_by":"Tony Siracusa, CFB Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63243","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=63243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}