{"id":73025,"date":"2025-03-19T10:30:12","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T14:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=73025"},"modified":"2025-09-20T14:41:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T18:41:17","slug":"73025-demond-claiborne-says-he-is-ready-to-carry-the-load","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/03\/19\/73025-demond-claiborne-says-he-is-ready-to-carry-the-load\/","title":{"rendered":"Demond Claiborne Says He Is Ready To Carry the Load"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are a lot of questions to be answered as Wake Forest opens Spring camp. One of them is not who the focal point of the offense is going to be. Running back Demond Claiborne<\/a> says he is ready to carry the load for the Demon Deacons.<\/p>\n

Demond Claiborne Says He Is Ready To Carry the Load<\/h2>\n

Claiborne met with the media after the first day of camp on Tuesday. He talked about the significant change to previous years, with an entirely new coaching staff and an unprecedented number of transfers on the roster. \u201cI love the old coaching staff, Coach [Dave] Clawson and those guys, but it\u2019s different and this was a change that was well needed,\u201d he said. He called the new staff, \u201cVery high energy,\u201d and added that the staff was, \u201cJust wanting us to be excited for what\u2019s next.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the installation of a new offense by new head coach Jake Dickert, it has been made clear to all who will listen<\/a>, that Claiborne is the starting point for much of it. In our interview with Dickert a couple of weeks ago he told us that his schemes rely upon a running back who can run downhill like Claiborne.<\/p>\n

The senior said, \u201cIt feels great,\u201d when asked his thoughts on his new coach making him one of the centerpieces of the offense. \u201cWe know we\u2019re going to run the ball. But they also instill in the team that we\u2019ve got to do this together. He always says we\u2019re going to run the ball to open up the pass. To put that out there as a team, it makes it a lot easier to go out there and play ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Decision to Stay<\/h3>\n

It wasn\u2019t always a given that Claiborne was coming back to Wake. Toward the end of the season, the substantiated rumors were that he was going to look elsewhere. Before Clawson stepped down it seemed as though Claiborne could settle in for another year at Wake. And then the coaching change came.<\/p>\n

Dickert said at his introductory press conference that he was going to meet with Claiborne later that day. That sealed the deal on Claiborne\u2019s plans. \u201cOur whole conversation was solely about how can he help me as a man,\u201d Claiborne said Tuesday. \u201cFor us to be having that conversation really showed me who he was as a man and was really why I chose to stay here.\u201d He added, \u201cHaving that relationship with my coach from the first day we met was something that made it easier for me to continue to want to be involved around here and stay a Demon Deacon.\u201d<\/p>\n

First Day Impressions<\/h3>\n

It is always ill-advised to make too much, good or bad, out of the first week of camp. There is a quarterback competition to be played out. There were flashes of very good mixed in with parts of head-scratching performances from every quarterback there Tuesday. The same was true for a significantly re-manufactured wide receiver room and the defensive backs.<\/p>\n

One thing that was not in question was Claiborne’s first-day performance. Dickert grinned when asked about his running back\u2019s day-one performance. \u201cHere\u2019s what I\u2019ve learned about Demond,\u201d Dickert said. \u201cHe\u2019s the ultimate competitor. Even in walkthroughs, this is like, \u2018Feed me.\u2019 He said even the offensive line coach, Jared Kaster, commented on what a difference it was going to make to have a running back with a diverse skill set.<\/p>\n

Linebacker Quincy Bryant knows Claiborne\u2019s game having gone through years of practice against him. \u201cHe\u2019s looking good. He\u2019s looking just as fast as he always is. I\u2019m just trying to keep up with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The wheel route pass that Claiborne caught out of the backfield and took the remaining 80 yards proved Bryant\u2019s point. Claiborne said he was confident it was a sign of things to come.<\/p>\n

There will be another day of the work being inside, installing sets and schemes. After that, most of the remaining 13 practices in Spring will move outdoors with more new looks certain to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are a lot of questions to be answered as Wake Forest opens Spring camp. One of them is not who the focal point of the offense is going to be. Running back Demond Claiborne says he is ready to carry the load for the Demon Deacons. Demond Claiborne Says He Is Ready To Carry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":73030,"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":[2,7,35643],"tags":[9582,34962,1249],"class_list":["post-73025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-acc","category-wake-forest-demon-deacons","tag-jake-dickert","tag-quincy-bryant","tag-wake-forest-demon-deacons"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73025","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=73025"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73031,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73025\/revisions\/73031"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}