{"id":73191,"date":"2025-03-27T16:30:17","date_gmt":"2025-03-27T20:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=73191"},"modified":"2025-09-20T14:41:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T18:41:15","slug":"73191-wake-forest-looking-for-a-groove","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/03\/27\/73191-wake-forest-looking-for-a-groove\/","title":{"rendered":"Wake Forest Looking For a Groove"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spring camp at Wake Forest is a day-to-day evolution. With six quarterbacks in camp<\/a>, and most of them new, snaps are at a premium. The offensive line has 11 guys so rest from all the snaps is at a premium. The receivers are working with quarterbacks who are significantly different from each other. \u00a0As the new world at Wake Forest moves forward, the offense is looking for a groove.<\/p>\n

First-year head coach Jake Dickert acknowledged this week that after the first \u201cweek-and-a-half of camp, the defense is slightly ahead of the offense. \u201cI think that\u2019s fair to say,\u201d he told the media this week. \u201cBesides one player, [Demond Claiborne], there\u2019s not really any production coming back on that side of the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wake Forest Looking For a Groove<\/h2>\n

Defense and Offense At Different Paces<\/h3>\n

Dickert said he expects it to take longer for the offense to gel. \u201cWe\u2019re a little banged up at offensive line,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I think that always leads to tougher situations, more pressure on the quarterback, less running lanes.\u201d<\/p>\n

But at this point in camp, with a new staff and so many new players, it really still is less about knowing specific play calls and more about the new systems as a whole. Dickert told the media he was not worried about schematic mistakes right now, so much as getting the details down. Everything is still a learning process, according to Dickert.<\/p>\n

He said early in his coaching career he was told that it takes a staff three years to be completely on the same page. \u201cI told our guys we don\u2019t have that kind of time,\u201d he said. Dickert told the media that one of his primary jobs as a head coach with an entirely new staff is to lend clarity to the process every day. \u201cHow can we ask our guys [the players] to be on the same page, if we\u2019re not?\u201d<\/p>\n

Details on Offense<\/h3>\n

Receiver Jeremiah Melvin said the focus on details requires a heightened level of attention from everyone. \u201cI\u2019m mindful of how I approach every day, from meetings to breakfast to walkthroughs to practice,\u201d he told us. \u201cI\u2019m just trying to attack everything with the same mindset and treat everything as the same.\u201d He said everyone on the team is working from the mindset of the switch needing to be flipped to \u201con\u201d at all times.<\/p>\n

As a receiver fighting for playing time, Melvin said he enjoys the fact that there are so many quarterbacks with differing styles at camp. He said building a relationship with each of the quarterbacks off the field has been critical to his development. And he said the fact that they are all going through these changes together is bringing about a cohesiveness. \u201cChange is unity, and that unity is really showing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forward Moving Defense<\/h3>\n

Part of the change for Wake is a new defense that Dickert proclaimed early on would be more aggressive. Returning defensive back Rushaun Tongue<\/a> said he can feel the change even after just a handful of practices. \u201cWe\u2019re bringing energy every day. Hopefully, all the different aspects of the techniques and stuff will come in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tongue said the energy level picked up once the players started practicing in pads. \u201cIt\u2019s better to be more aggressive than less aggressive, especially for a defense,\u201d Tongue said. \u201cIt\u2019s better to try to calm it down than to have to try to raise the bar for being aggressive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Team Gets Bowled Over<\/h3>\n

Last week, we learned that Dickert and some of the players had organized several off-field \u201cteam bonding\u201d events. One of them was a multi-stage bowling tournament. From every player we asked, they had differing thoughts on who the best bowler was among the players. But the best overall? There was no ambiguity in their answers to that question. It was their new head coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you grow up in small town Wisconsin, you know with some local bars and bowling alleys, I think you just take that on a little bit,\u201d Dickert quipped. \u201cThese guys [the players] like to play with the spin. I\u2019m a straight-line ball guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wake has nine more Spring camp practices before the Spring \u201cscrimmage\u201d open to the fans on April 19th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Main Image: Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spring camp at Wake Forest is a day-to-day evolution. With six quarterbacks in camp, and most of them new, snaps are at a premium. The offensive line has 11 guys so rest from all the snaps is at a premium. The receivers are working with quarterbacks who are significantly different from each other. \u00a0As the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":73194,"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":[10629,9582,34995,1249],"class_list":["post-73191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-acc","category-wake-forest-demon-deacons","tag-demond-claiborne","tag-jake-dickert","tag-jeremiah-melvin","tag-wake-forest-demon-deacons"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73191","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=73191"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73195,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73191\/revisions\/73195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}