{"id":77077,"date":"2025-09-02T14:04:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T18:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=77077"},"modified":"2025-09-20T14:41:02","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T18:41:02","slug":"clean-up-at-wake-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/09\/02\/clean-up-at-wake-forest\/","title":{"rendered":"Clean-Up at Wake Forest"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week\u2019s takeaways from Wake Forest\u2019s escape in week one<\/a> are not much different from what they were right after the game Friday night. Head coach Jake Dickert met with the media on Monday, having watched the game film. His takeaway was the coach’s line; A win is a win. But more importantly, there is a lot that needs to be cleaned up quickly. \u201cThe laundry list of cleaning up is really big,\u201d Dickert said.<\/p>\n

Clean-Up at Wake Forest<\/h2>\n

What’s Up?<\/h3>\n

The Demon Deacons are at home Saturday afternoon against Western Carolina. The Catamounts got beat 52-45 by Gardener-Webb last weekend. Don\u2019t let that lull you into complacency. WCU was missing FCS All-American running back Taron Dickens. He was not injured. And the only statement school officials were willing to make this week was that he is still on the active roster, but was not available to play last Saturday. And this week? It is very TBD.<\/p>\n

The status of Wake Forest running back Demond Claiborne<\/a> is the same\u2026very TBD. He had three carries last weekend before leaving with an injury. He came back later to try one more carry but was doubled over in pain on the sidelines. After considerable time in the locker room and the sideline tent, he reappeared with a huge ice pack on the left side of his midsection, just above the waist. Wake doesn\u2019t comment on injury specifics, but feel free to draw your own WebMD-based conclusions.<\/p>\n

Clean Up<\/h3>\n

\u201cI really, after digesting the tape, feel similar to the way I did after the game,\u201d Dickert said Monday. \u201cWe found a pathway to win it.\u201d He said some teams, when stretched the way Wake was, find ways to lose. Still, the 10-9 win is not going to go down in anyone\u2019s memory banks as a keeper.<\/p>\n

The offense was rather pedestrian, particularly without Claiborne. Quarterback Robby Ashford was 20 of 28 passing for 218 yards. He also accounted for Wake\u2019s only touchdown of the night on a five-yard run. And while the 71% completion rate is nice, the offense averaged just over seven yards per completion, again showing little ability to go downfield.<\/p>\n

The Deacs rushed for only 130 yards, with Ashford leading the way with 42 yards on 18 carries. As a team, Wake averaged all of 2.8 yards per carry.<\/p>\n

Setting the Standard<\/h3>\n

So, for Dickert, what is needed in the cleanup? As to the offense, he said, \u201cJust not up to the standard of the way we need to play football.\u201d He also set the offensive line never really controlled or reset the line of scrimmage, obviously hampering any concept of a run game.<\/p>\n

Depth on the offensive line gets a little thinner this week. Clint Richards broke his foot near the end of the game and will be out for an extended period of time. By the way, he finished the last few plays of the game, broken foot and all.<\/p>\n

Controlling What You Can Control<\/h3>\n

Dickert said some of the things Kennesaw State did on defense caused Wake to hesitate on offense. \u201cHesitation kills performance,\u201d he proclaimed. \u201cThere were times when we got there and we didn\u2019t keep through like we needed to do.\u201d Dickert said that is about attitude and team identity. \u201cThings that we can control need to be better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of those controllable things were an excessive number of penalties. Dickert said the tape shows Wake offensive linemen holding, with their hands clearly out of position. He said the team as a whole, but the offense in particular, needs to learn to trust their technique.<\/p>\n

As for the defense, he gave the unit credit for adjusting and locking down late in the game. He said he identified some missed assignments earlier on that were mostly a result of miscommunication among the players.<\/p>\n

Responsibility for Everyone<\/h3>\n

The elements to be cleaned apparently include the coach himself. Dickert was asked about the offense without Claiborne. \u201cThat\u2019s where I need to do better personally,\u201d he said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t adjust fast enough on our plan without Demond.\u201d He said the offense needs to be just as aggressive regardless of who is the running back and make the push downfield. \u201cWe can\u2019t be afraid of second and 10.\u201d<\/p>\n

To get there, he is going to need more command from Ashford. Some of the stats were viable. But there was also the second half play where on third down, he scrambled out of the pocket, but went out of bounds a half yard short of the first down. \u201cTo me, it\u2019s situation awareness,\u201d Dickert said. \u201cThat\u2019s not a learn [just] for Robby. That\u2019s a learn for everyone carrying the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dickert said there were plenty of good plays to highlight to the team in film study. What was missing, he said, was stringing several of them together.<\/p>\n

Later this week, we will take a deeper look at Western Carolina and the match-up.<\/p>\n

Main Image: Grace Sorrells (Shot with Grace)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week\u2019s takeaways from Wake Forest\u2019s escape in week one are not much different from what they were right after the game Friday night. Head coach Jake Dickert met with the media on Monday, having watched the game film. His takeaway was the coach’s line; A win is a win. But more importantly, there is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":77081,"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":[7,2,17,35643],"tags":[9582,35522,1249,35509],"class_list":["post-77077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-acc","category-featured","category-news","category-wake-forest-demon-deacons","tag-jake-dickert","tag-taron-dickens","tag-wake-forest-demon-deacons","tag-western-carolina"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77077","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=77077"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77082,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77077\/revisions\/77082"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}