nd<\/sup> in the country in total defense. Still, Dickert found room for improvement there as well. \u201cToo many penalties that have led to explosive plays,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you get four roughing the quarterbacks, those are 15-yard explosive play penalties. And teams are capitalizing on that from us.\u201d<\/p>\nPerspective on the Defense<\/h3>\n
For whatever needed improvements Dickert sees for his defense, there is an admirer on the other side of the field. SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee had high praise for the Wake Forest defense during his weekly press conference. \u201cWhat they\u2019re doing is really good. They\u2019re really good on defense. They\u2019re one of the best in the country against the pass.\u201d He also had thoughts on what Wake Forest looks like under the guidance of Dickert. \u201cThey probably play harder, or as hard, as any team we\u2019ve played since we\u2019ve been here.\u201d To quantify that, Lashlee is in his fourth year at SMU. \u201cThat just speaks to that they believe in their head coach and their staff and what they\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Quarterback Questions<\/h3>\n
Both teams have a quarterback who is less than 100% healthy right now. SMU\u2019s Kevin Jennings has been battling a recurring ankle injury for several weeks. Through a lot of limping, he threw at a 54% completion rate for 290 yards, two touchdowns, and an interception in the 35-24 win at Clemson last week. Dickert compared Jennings to a quarterback he coached at Washington State. \u201cActually reminds me a little of Cam Ward,\u201d Dickert said in bringing up last year\u2019s Heisman Trophy finalist. \u201cPlays tremendous off script. Flicks the ball to find guys late and makes big, explosive plays. Really athletic on the perimeter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the quarterback position is still a question mark for Wake. Robby Ashford did not play in the win in Corvallis two weeks ago. In his place, Deshawn Purdie went 14 of 27 for 270 yards and four touchdowns.<\/p>\n
Ashford got eased back into limited reps last week. Dickert said Ashford would be practicing this week, but was noncommittal when it came to who his starting quarterback will be come Saturday.<\/p>\n
Expectations<\/h3>\n
The line has SMU as a three-and-a-half-point favorite. But Lashlee doesn\u2019t see it that way. The Mustangs play top 10 Miami next week, but says Lashlee, \u201cThat game\u2019s not any bigger than this one.\u201d He said if SMU gets ahead of itself, the groundwork is there to get beat by Wake Forest. \u201cThey [Wake Forest] had the number seven team in the country beat,\u201d Lashlee said. \u201cThey\u2019re at home. It\u2019s pretty much a pick \u2018em game because they\u2019ve earned that. They\u2019re a really good football team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Time Well Spent<\/h3>\n
Wake has now had its two bye weeks and will have six consecutive games to finish out the regular season. Dickert said he gave the players some downtime over the weekend for having what he called \u201cPurposeful rest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dickert\u2019s self-awareness led him to admit that he is bad at having downtime. He laughed at admitting how he spent some of his weekend. \u201cWe got some pumpkins carved on Sunday. That was a big deal,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m the best there is at taking the guts out and finding the seeds,\u201d he quipped. \u201cBut my mind was firmly on what this team needs to do to keep getting better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Main Image: Grace Sorrells (Shot with Grace)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cSelf-Awareness Week\u201d for Wake Forest football has come to an end, as the prep work goes full speed ahead for the SMU game this Saturday. Don\u2019t look for Self-Awareness Week on the school calendar. The name for the bye week is the creation of head coach Jake Dickert. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to be man enough to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":81518,"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":[7,2,17,35640,35643],"tags":[9582,33007,648,9186],"class_list":["post-81515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-acc","category-featured","category-news","category-smu-mustangs","category-wake-forest-demon-deacons","tag-jake-dickert","tag-kevin-jennings","tag-rhett-lashlee","tag-robby-ashford"],"modified_by":"Tony Siracusa, CFB Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81515","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=81515"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81521,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81515\/revisions\/81521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}