{"id":63588,"date":"2024-09-05T17:00:15","date_gmt":"2024-09-05T21:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=63588"},"modified":"2024-09-05T10:38:14","modified_gmt":"2024-09-05T14:38:14","slug":"wakes-claiborne-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2024\/09\/05\/wakes-claiborne-identity\/","title":{"rendered":"Wake’s Claiborne Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"

For all the attention the quarterback competition has garnered at Wake Forest, it won\u2019t matter much if the Demon Deacons don\u2019t have a viable running attack. Balance in the offense is going to be critical. That makes Wake\u2019s Claiborne identity all the more important.<\/p>\n

The 5\u2019-10\u201d, 200-pound Demond Claiborne<\/a> was ranked as the 38th<\/sup> running back recruit in the country by 247Sports three years ago as he came out of Aylett, VA. Since then, he has been biding his time in a running back rotation at Wake Forest. He is still in a rotation, but now he is leading it. Last year it was Justice Ellison\u2019s world as the lead ball carrier. Now Ellison is at Indiana, where he had only 10 carries in week one. And Claiborne, now a junior is poised for a potentially big season in Winston-Salem.<\/p>\n

The Starter<\/h3>\n

Last week, in the season opener<\/a> against North Carolina A&T, Claiborne had 17 carries for 135 yards and a touchdown. There is still a rotation at the position. Tate Carney is going to get his share of carries this season. But there is no mistaking who is at the lead of the pack.<\/p>\n

While appearing in 11 games last season for Wake, Claiborne had 586 yards and five touchdowns. Now in 2024, one game in and he is already 20% of the way to eclipsing the 2023 totals.<\/p>\n

After the game Saturday, head coach Dave Clawson said these are the performances that he knows Claiborne is capable of producing on a regular basis. \u201cWhen he\u2019s healthy, he\u2019s a stud,\u201d Clawson said in the post-game press conference. \u201cHe\u2019s a difference maker. He\u2019s an impact player. If 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

Claiborne’s Attention<\/h3>\n

Even with the impressive opening game stats, Claiborne was more interested in a different part of his performance. He was more interested in going to look at the game film to see how he did blocking. \u201cThat\u2019s what I want to be, is a guy that my teammates look at and say, \u2018I caught the ball 50 yards down the field,\u2019 and he sees me trying to come down the field to make a block.\u201d He added, \u201cAs much as I love scoring, I love being shown on the film, on the effort film, (that Clawson puts together to show in team meetings). Yeah, we run the ball, but I also want to be known as somebody who gives great effort and goes hard for my teammates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Claiborne had one of those very plays on Saturday. The film review shows him running far downfield to throw a block on a pass play to Taylor Morin. \u201cThat\u2019s another sign that Demond is all in,\u201d Clawson said at his weekly press conference Tuesday. \u201cWhen you put that play up, and his teammates see that type of effort, how do you not want to block for that guy?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Development<\/h3>\n

Clawson chalked it up to the growth of a young player with obvious talent learning the bigger picture within the game. \u201cA lot of skill guys, they think it\u2019s about getting the ball and catching the passes. And you hope at a certain point they figure out that it\u2019s about team success and all the little things they can do. And he\u2019s going to make plays. He\u2019s an extremely talented running back,\u201d Clawson said. \u201cBut when a player of his ability makes an effort play like that, those are the goosebump moments for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also taking note of Claiborne\u2019s game is Virginia head coach Tony Elliott. His Cavaliers\u2019 defense<\/a> has the task of trying to slow down the Wake running back. \u201cHe runs bigger than his listed size,\u201d Elliott said this week. \u201cSo, he\u2019s a violent guy. He\u2019s got really good feet, and he can finish runs.\u201d<\/p>\n

It took four Richmond players carrying the ball to get 147 net rushing yards against Virginia’s run defense last Saturday. The challenge is there in front of Claiborne this week.<\/p>\n

\"Wake's
Photo courtesy: Grant Halverson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For all the attention the quarterback competition has garnered at Wake Forest, it won\u2019t matter much if the Demon Deacons don\u2019t have a viable running attack. Balance in the offense is going to be critical. That makes Wake\u2019s Claiborne identity all the more important. The 5\u2019-10\u201d, 200-pound Demond Claiborne was ranked as the 38th running […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":63599,"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":[102,1135,321,5367,1249],"class_list":["post-63588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-acc","tag-acc","tag-dave-clawson","tag-virginia-cavaliers","tag-virginia-football","tag-wake-forest-demon-deacons"],"modified_by":"Tony Siracusa, CFB Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63588","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=63588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}