Following this afternoon's practice, left guard Russell Nenon checked in with these notes from practice:

• Practice had high intensity today for the first day in shells.

• The defense did real well in the team segment at the beginning of practice, but...

• The first team offense looked very good in the team segment at the end of practice.

• There were lots of installations of special teams today.

Other observers checked in with the following details:

• The defense in particular was excited to have some pads on and hit some people.

• At one point Devon "Y'lou" Brown took a hit from behind and sat out the rest of practice, but was still on the field watching.

• During 1-on-1 drills Chip Brinkman made a good grab on a deep ball but was tripped up by Chip Vaughn, landed awkwardly, and also sat out the rest of practice. Hopefully both Brinkman and Y'lou are fine, but we'll have to see if they practice tomorrow.

• Kerry Major practiced and appears to be just fine.

• During today's Skelly period (7 on 7) the offense had the upper hand except for a pick-6 by Alphonso Smith. Riley Skinner looked particularly good in this drill as well as 1-on-1 drills. DJ Boldin had some good catches, and Brandon Ghee looked good in coverage.

• Punt team work is starting up and looks more stable than it did in the spring. The snaps look pretty good so far.

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Today was the local media day for Wake Forest football, which is great except for the fact that I'm not going to be local media for another two and a half weeks. Information on the event and quotes from Jim Grobe and a handful of players can be seen here on the official site.

As for the actual practice, here are some notes:

• Practice was delayed about a half hour due to some pretty big thunderstorms, and ended with another big thunderstorm.
  

• More team drills today; D.J. Boldin caught a deep ball that would have gone the distance and made a few other nice catches
  

• Alphonso Smith had one of the easiest picks of his career after a ball deflected right at him off a receivers hands. It may not have been the receivers fault though; the throw was high.
  

• Kerry Major is practicing, but there's no contact at practice right now so we'll have to see what he does when there is in a few days.
  

I think things will pick up once the team starts adding pads to the mix; I'm guessing the guys are ready to start hitting each other.

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As Old Gold & Blog enters its second school year covering Wake Forest athletics, it seemed a fitting time to update the look and layout of things. Hopefully you like the new design and don't have any problems using it, but if any issues arises please let me know. Don't worry, the header images will change on a seasonal basis; other sports will have their chance in the spotlight later in the year.

I also recognize that many of you have become new followers of Old Gold & Blog in the last few months, and I want to point you towards the subscription options over to the right. If you subscribe via RSS you'll be updated every time there's a new post. Subscribing via email puts Old Gold & Blog in your inbox once per day. There's no better way to keep track of the latest Wake Forest news and analysis.

On to the news...

Yesterday was the first day of practice for the Demon Deacons. Besides my report, the Nenon report, and this report from the official website there wasn't a whole lot of specific practice coverage.

Still, yesterday produced plenty of other Wake Forest links. I asked my three questions a couple days ago, but Heather Dinnich finally asks hers. The Raleigh News & Observer has a few questions as well. Dinnich also names Alphonso Smith and Sam Swank as two of the top five clutch players in the conference, and Swank makes it into the nation's top ten.

The previews keep pouring in, this time Dan Collins for the Sporting News.

Want to take a look inside Deacon Tower? Done.

Want to be amazed by Aaron Curry? He can power clean a lot of weight. 374 pounds to be exact. Check it out:

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Apparently Alphonso Smith (along with Wake's other Florida players from the area) got their speed from chasing rabbits. Go figure.

Wasn't exactly what I expected when I checked Heather Dinnich's ACC Blog today, but its a fun story and Wake gets some coverage.

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Last night I got to talk to cornerback Alphonso Smith for a few minutes about Dean Hood and the coaching changes. It was an impromptu conversation, so I'm just going to paraphrase what Phonz said:

Hood leaving has been hard on the team and on Alphonso personally. He has talked to coach Hood several times and definitely would like him to still be around. Nonetheless, he understands why he took the job (family reasons, mostly) and wishes him all the best.

According to Alphonso, Hood and Lambert are/were the two best coaches on the staff, so with Lambert filling the role of DC he doesn't expect there to be any drop off. Alphonso is confident next season's defense will be the best in Wake Forest history.

It was great to hear how close the team and the coaches are and that they have formed such strong relationships. Also, there is clearly no ill will between players and coaches who have moved on. We have a strong staff and they are ready to fill in the holes and not skip a beat. As far as coaches are concerned there should be nothing to worry about for next season.

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This was apparently published late last week, but somehow I missed it.

Steve Justice and Alphonso Smith have been named to the Walter Camp Football Foundation All-American 2nd team. Justice was also named a CBSSports.com All-American 1st team and an AP 1st team All-American, while Smith is a 3rd team AP All-American

Redshirt freshmen Josh Adams and Hunter Haynes were both named to the Sporting News ACC All-Freshman team, and Adams was named to their national All-Freshman 2nd team.

Congrats to all of them for earning these honors!

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I know I’m biased, but come on ESPN… LSU for last weekend’s game changing performance? I realize that this comes down to voters and the fact of the matter is we don’t have nearly the voting fan base needed to outgun three big state schools, but this is the type of things that just begs for at least a little bit of a rant.

I’ll put some of the blame on ESPN; when the highlights of a game don’t even make SportsCenter on Saturday night, the chances of winning are incredibly slim. If we were going to win this thing we needed at least a little bit of hype on SC to generate just a little bit of word-of-mouth interest.

According to the results presented during Boise State’s 38-16 romp of Southern Miss, LSU’s play got 48% of the vote, followed by Georgia with 25% and Wake with 17%. I guess the only positive is that we didn't get last like Oklahoma State did with 11% of the vote, but when Alphonso Smith clearly had the best play and there’s no prize for finishing second, it’s hard to feel much consolation.

Right? Right.

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