Showing posts with label Coach Grobe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Coach Grobe. Show all posts

Wake up call: Lessons from week one  

There really aren't any links to share this morning, so we're going to do something completely different with today's "Wake up call."

For the first time since practices began on August 1, Jim Grobe and his football team took yesterday off. Having been through eight days of practice and a scrimmage, now is the perfect time time to look back and see what we've learned about this team so far.

  • The Demon Deacons have hit the ground running and Grobe has worked the team very hard. Until yesterday the team worked for an average of about two hours per day without a single day off. I haven't seen any indications that people are running out of gas, so I think this is a good sign for the strength and conditioning work the team did over the summer.
  • Injuries are presenting a bit of a problem. The Deacons have avoided any big injuries to anyone expected to see significant playing time this season, but a minor injury bug does seem to have bitten the team. Lots of guys are coming up with injuries that shouldn't cause them to miss any games, but are definitely keeping them from getting the work they need in the preseason. I don't think it's at the point where people need to be worried about it having much effect on the season as a whole, but it's definitely something to keep an eye on.
  • The questions about who is going to catch the ball have been answered. D.J. Boldin has definitely stepped up, as have Devon Brown, and Ben Wooster. Chip Brinkman, although injured right now, also appears to be ready to step up come August 28.
  • Coach finally found a long snapper, or rather a long snapper came back to him. Greg Bechtel has stepped up and appears ready to competently fill the shoes left by Nick Jarvis. Despite having left the team before the spring, Bechtel appears ready to put the one bad snap of his career behind him and handle the task before him. I think this is a huge sigh of relief for the coaching staff and for the fans.
  • The defense is as good as advertised. It's a strong unit with plenty of experience winning football games. They showed their readiness in the scrimmage Saturday night, and despite the fact that defenses are often ahead of their offensive counterparts this early in the season, this unit is ready to keep up that pace all season long.
  • The offensive line is still of some concern. That's not to say that they aren't capable of getting the job done - I believe they are - but it's a good thing they have a couple more weeks of work to get their chemistry down. They should be a successful unit, they just need to keep working hard.
  • More freshman might be ready to play this season than we expected. It's always hard to tell what coach is really thinking when he talks about freshman, but these quotes indicate a few guys make actually be ready for the challenge:
    One of the real issues we have right now is that we have five or six true freshmen who look really good. We're going to keep looking at them. I don't have a problem playing them if they're the real deal and they're going to get 20 or 30 snaps per game. We've got a bunch of those guys right now who look pretty good but we'll know more after Saturday.
I'm relatively certain the coaching staff would consider the first nine days worth of work a success, and as they go through a two-a-day today I expect we'll see more good things. As long as the injuries don't get any worse, this team should continue to improve and be ready to go to Waco on the 28th and take care of business.

photo by Dean Shore

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Wake up call: Quick hits  

Just some quick links this morning. It went up very late last night, so if you missed it here is the practice report from yesterday.

Al-Farouq Aminu will plead guilty to BB gun charges and will face three years probation. It should not affect his basketball career.

Here's a random Wake football preview from Olympia, WA. Go figure.

HD ranks Jim Grobe the #1 coach in the conference. The rest of the list makes me scratch my head a bit, though.

Grobe says he's found a snapper - Greg Bechtel. Good news.

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Tuesday Practice: Full Pads  

After yesterday's practice I talked about how impressed I've been by the offense. I don't necessarily think I spoke too soon, but today wasn't their day.

Instead it was the defense's turn to shine, but I get the impression that it wasn't so much the defense performing particularly well as it was the offense having some problems. Perhaps it was just a lack of focus for the offense, but receivers dropped way too many balls.

Still, it's good to see the defense have success. Not that anyone should have been worried at this point, but I think it's good for everyone to have some good days early on just to build confidence.

Coach Grobe agreed that it was a good day for the defense. "The defense had a good day today. Yesterday, I thought the offense had the upper hand on the defense. As typically happens, when one side or the other has a good day, the other side gets embarrassed a little bit and comes out and practices better the next day."

Grobe has also mentioned that it's unusual to start doing a lot of special teams work this soon after the start of practices, but once again the team was working on it. Not only did the punt team get some work tonight, but also the field goal unit.

The news on the injury front is not particularly good. Chip Brinkman, who sat out yesterday after being hurt Sunday, will probably be out a couple of weeks with a hamstring injury. It's the type of injury that he could probably return from more quickly, but I'm guessing that they don't want to create a situation where it will nag him for the whole season by bringing him back too early. Still, this is valuable time for a guy like him who is looking to have a big impact this season, and this definitely won't help.

Redshirt freshman tight end Cameron Ford has been injured as well and will likely be out for awhile with an ankle sprain. Also not practicing today were fulback Anthony Williams and tight end J.T. Dixon.

Photo by Bob Hebert

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Wake Forest media day and 2nd practice  

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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Wake Forest 23rd in USA Today Coaches' Poll  

USA Today released the preseason Coaches' Poll this morning, and the Demon Deacons came in at 23. It is the first time in school history Wake Forest has been ranked in the preseason top 25.

Even though this is about what has been expected given all the other preseason coverage this summer, I think it's still exciting to see the coaches validate what Wake fans already know.

According to a release from the athletic department, Jim Grobe (one of 61 voters in the poll) had this to say:

I think it's rewarding for us in that people respect our football program. But at the same time, it's a little bit scary because we have a really tough schedule. I think we can be a good football team but that certainly doesn't guarantee a good season. From our perspective, it's nice to be ranked in the preseason but it would be nicer to be ranked highly at the end of the season.
Other ACC schools in the top 25 are Clemson at 9 and Virginia Tech at 16.

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Wake won't win the ACC in '08?  

Not according to Gobbler Country. Feel free to go give them a piece of your mind.

Don't come back and tell me the post is stupid, though, because that's what it's supposed to be. They've been doing it for every school. I will admit that their "dirt" on Wake is pretty weak.

I will comment on their stance that Wake will return to mediocrity when Grobe leaves: This will not be true if he stays around for 3+ years. If he left now we might be in trouble, but I think with a couple more years the foundation will be there for whoever comes next. Hopefully we don't have to find out.

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As Promised: More From Coach Grobe at Tuesday's Practice  

On the recent performance of the offensive line (specifically Saturday):

"I thought we got a little better push up front with the offensive line. I think we’re just more consistent; we’re not making as many mistakes. We had too many dumb penalties; that’s something we’ve really got to take care of. I was pleased with the competitiveness of our scrimmage.

Now that we’ve got the weight down on some of these guys I just like the looks of that group. We’ve got the potential to be better up front than we were last year. I know that we lost some veteran guys but I think this might be the most athletic offensive line we’ve had in a long time. We have little more flexibility and a chance to pull people a little bit more and man block a little bit more than we have in the past. Now we’re more athletic and we’ve got the potential to just go one on one with some people up front.

We haven’t had a backup center step up yet. We really need Ryan Britt or Chance Raines to step up. Right now if something happened to Trey Bailey we’d probably have to move Russel Nenon back over to center and I don’t want to do that so I want one of those young centers to come on and step up.

Joe Looney has done some really good stuff. I really like that kid right now and I think with this summer to lift and be here and then an August under his belt that’s a guy who has a chance to help us as a freshman. We’d like to see Boomer Peterson be a guy, and Gage Crewes is another one. One of those two guys I’d like to see step up and be that other guard we’re looking for."

On the goals for the last week of Spring Practice:

"We’re probably going to add a few things here and there just to play with. In the spring we tinker with stuff because we don’t have to play anybody so if it doesn’t work we don’t have to panic about it. I think our emphasis even more now, you’ll probably see fewer reps from the old guys and more reps from the young guys. Just keep trying to get young guys more experience. The only experience they’re going to have when we got to Baylor is what we give them now and in August so we want to make sure to give them as much as possible."

I'm looking forward to this last week of work. I should be able to attend Wednesday and Thursday practices in their entirety and of course Saturday's game. As always, full reports will follow ASAP.


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Tuesday Spring Practice - Quick Notes  

I'm on a bit of a tight schedule tonight and don't have time to do a full writeup right now, but I'll share a few quick notes from the brief time I spent out at practice today and a couple of Grobe quotes. Hopefully late tonight I can transcribe more of what Grobe said at practice today and get that up, too.

- WR Casey Hill, who looked like he seriously injured his right knee in Saturday's scrimmage, is in a walking boot with only a high ankle sprain and will be healthy in 2-3 weeks. Great news for him.

- It was a beautiful afternoon out there and from what I can tell the sunny but cool temperatures are exactly what the guys like to practice in. In the drills I saw everybody seemed to be working hard. I saw Dennis Godfry working hard and getting high praise in some drills (sentiments echoed by Coach Grobe) and I was also impressed by the WR corps who were making some good moves on the corners in route running drills.

I was involved in a conversation on the Scout.com message boards over the weekend regarding the current state of our depth at running back. I figured I might as well get the right information straight from the horses mouth, so I asked coach about it:

"Right now C.J. is our third tailback. He’s doing some good things but he’s not a very big guy and I think he’s got a sore shoulder right now and so for him he’s got plenty of ability but durability is going to be the key. Any time you have a player with that kind of speed you feel like you’ve got to get him on the field somehow. We’re excited about his potential but the key for him is – at his size can he be a durable guy?"

Would Grobe consider moving someone like Y'lou back to running back?

"Yea, no doubt about it if we needed to do that. We did it with Kenny Moore a couple of years ago and if there’s any one reason we won an ACC championship it was because we had Kenny at tailback so we wouldn’t be opposed to that. But we’ve got Lovell Jackson coming in in next year’s class. We’ve got some other players that we’ve kind of penciled in as DBs and wideouts but they played running back in high school What we’d really like though is to have a healthy Josh Adams and a healthy Brandon Pendergrass."

Good to hear. Check back late tonight or tomorrow morning for more of Grobe's quotes form practice.

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Tuesday Spring Practice, Talk With Grobe  

It was good to get back out and see a little bit of this afternoon’s football practice, particularly because most of the ugly weather that’s been hanging around since last Thursday seems to have disappeared. Unfortunately I have a pretty hectic week and wasn’t able to spend two hours out there watching the whole practice.

Still, I was able to catch up with Coach Grobe and get some thoughts from him regarding Saturday’s scrimmage and the state of the team in general at this point in spring practice. Now that he’d had time to review film from Saturday he talked more extensively about the state of the offensive line and about what may need to be done to get a better look at where they stand.

“I think protection-wise I think we’re a little bit better than we’ve been. I think our guys are doing some good things in pass protections. Had a couple breakdowns, typically when we just didn’t pick out the right guy to block. Mental mistakes hurt us a little bit but I thought when we knew who to block we did a pretty good job at times, but I think until we get a chance to get a little bit further in spring it will be hard to evaluate that offensive line.”

It definitely isn’t surprising that coach is reserving judgment on the line right now, as that is exactly what he should be doing. It’s all well in good for myself and other fans to be concerned, and coach certainly is as well, but there’s a lot of time between now and August.

I also asked if perhaps some of the line’s struggles stem from the fact that they’re facing one of the strongest defensive lines around.

“I really hope that’s the case. That’s the theory I’m floating out there right now. I’m hoping that’s the way it is. I’ve got a feeling that guys like Boo Robinson are pretty tough to block and there are going to be times where we’ve got everything drawn up just right and we’ve got hats on everybody and we’re just getting beat by good players. I think part of that’s true. I think our offensive line is a little better than I think right now because they’re going against such good people up front that once in awhile those guys are going to make plays. Good players make plays. Right now we’re putting in a lot of different plays offensively, different protections and the running game and haven’t really settled a lot on our running game. I think it’s early to tell but I do think that our defensive front has some very talented kids that can run and make plays so that at times can make your offensive line look a little bit suspect when in fact it could just be that your defensive front is pretty talented.”

I guess I probably threw him a bit of a softball there, but I too hope that we have a very impressive defensive line this season and that our offensive will only be better for having to go against them on a daily basis.

One final interesting thing coach talked about what the play calling in Saturday’s scrimmage, and really in spring practice as a whole.

“We probably through the ball too much Saturday, and the defense has a lot to do with that. In order for us to be successful we have to throw a little bit against our guys but I think a key for us next season is going to be our ability to run the football. We weren’t very consistent, but we didn’t run it a lot so it’s hard to tell. I don’t know whether it will be in the scrimmage or whether we’ll emphasize it more in practice, but I’d like to get a better look at these offensive linemen. If we don’t run the football a little bit more we won’t be able to tell.”

A couple of notes from the short time I spent out at practice: FB Rich Belton, who tore his ACL early last season, was at practice today participating in a few drills. He didn’t have pads on and definitely wasn’t participating in anything involving contact, but it was good to see him out there moving around.

I also got a look at Ryan McManus working on his long snapping. He definitely has the strength to do it (most QBs are pretty good snappers, actually) but his accuracy (and sometimes his spiral) still need some work. I know he’ll get a ridiculous number of reps between now and August and I don’t expect it to really cause any problems in the long run.

I’ll miss tomorrow practice (I have an early evening exam) but should be back out there Thursday and at Saturday’s scrimmage, so I’ll have full reports from both of those.

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Brad Lamert Officially Named Defensive Coordinator, Other Position Changes  

The school officially announced today that the rearrangement of coaching responsibilities has been completed.

Former linebackers coach Brad Lambert has, as expected, been promoted to Defensive Coordinator, while Tim Billings will move from wide receivers to defensive secondary.

From Wake QB Tom Elrod is officially moving to QB coach from TE/FB coach, while new coaches Brain Knorr and Steve Russ take over TE/FBs and receivers, respectively.

None of this comes as any significant surprise, but it's nice to know everything has been straightened out going into spring practice here in a couple weeks. Given the last couple of weeks on the hardwood it's a pleasant change of pace to think about football season. I look forward to seeing the guys practice after spring break.

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Grobe Press Conference  

Grobe started early, so I missed his opening remarks, other than the fact that he knows that we'll be ranked "13th out of 12" in the ACC again this year, but he's okay with that.

Recruiting in Florida has evolved, 6 of 16 from Jacksonville. ACC Championship experience helped that, but Tom Elrod's experience in Florida helps a lot. Everyone knows him.

Grobe says we really only have room for the 16 we got, so the fact that it's a "small number" doesn't bother him. Could have taken one more, but that's about it. The people who take 30 don't actually get all of those - academically ineligible, etc. The Fact that we have lots of 5th year seniors have a lot to do with this.

Grobe obviously doesn't worry about the "numbers" from the "scouting experts." Wants to find football players who can win in the ACC but can also graduate from Wake Forest.

"I'm sure there's somebody on there" who won't redshirt next fall. Most likely one (or more) of the guys who are here now grey-shirting.

Dixon is here and good, Looney is here and "looks great."

In this class Grobe was looking primarily "just for balance." Made sure each coach got someone he wanted, the only problem late was making sure they got a DE. This is what Kevin Smith is for.

Hoping Dixon can help at TE pretty quickly, Parker could be really good too. Playing early has a lot to do with positions too.

Tries to avoid "stashing" guys at prep schools, really only done it once.

Coaching staff changes "might have" had an impact on recruiting, maybe not. Tries not to keep coaching changes "hush hush" like some schools do, thinks it's better to be up front with guys.

Does not send out more LOIs than he can accept - Wellman gets mad of we do these things.

Gaines was willing to wait a semester to enroll because he really wanted to play for Wake. He's here now and is doing well, both athletically and academically.

Chris Givens can't be talked about, Grobe saying only that he's "recruiting Chris Givens."

Kenny Okoro - great cover guy, like an Alphonso Smith, 4.0 high school student, also ran a 4.49 at camp last summer. Can also play WR and Special teams. Kind of tall, which they like for corners (like Brandon Ghee).

Joe Looney - Wonderful kid, great family, ended up with over 30 offers but he came to campus 3 times and the current players were great with him and he felt really comfortable here.

Lovell Jackson - can really run, in fact he really loves track. Good academics

Class is characterized by athleticism and speed, which Grobe loves.

Team has increased credibility in Florida thanks to Skinner and Alphonso, everyone there knows about them.

Lambert has not yet decided who exactly he wants to coach. He wants to stay with the guys he's got, but may not happen.

Grobe thinks we could possibly sign another one but we'll see. Still working a little bit. Nonetheless, still very happy with the class.

Stachitas - throws the ball great but also very very fast. Dual-Threat player.

Regarding disappointments - can't really talk specifically, but sometimes in these situations you second guess some things if you'd done things differently, but all-in-all expects things to work out and feels pretty good.

There are seven to nine guys who are ready to play physically, but not mentally so they probably won't be playing much right away.

Really like Terrence Davis, but most likely Kenny's roll will be filled by people like Devon Brown.

Most players bring up the fact that they will probably be redshirted at Wake, because other schools have told them Wake will do that, but Grobe tells them that they're not going to waste a year of eligibility for 5 snaps a game, but if they're good enough they will play.

The 06 Championship season actually probably helped with recruiting this season more than it did last year.

Coach doesn't feel like they have to sell players on being able to win football here anymore, the kids already know.

Lots of juniors will be on campus this coming weekend, of course he can't mention any by name.

Team is moving towards being more of a power football team, but we've actually gotten too big and need to get weight back down for some lineman. Rather work from being too big to a little smaller rather than from too small but can't get big enough.

And that's all there is. The video should be up on the school's site later, and I think I might be able to get my own audio up but I'll see about that.

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Jim Grobe Holds Press Conference  

Coach Grobe held a press conference just a little while ago on campus just outside the football facilities. He avoided answering specific questions regarding any specific job, saying only that he is excited about this team and next season and that he couldn't leave because of his relationships with players. He also said that any rumors of him making more money here at Wake are not true, and that he didn't get an even longer deal. He does not deny that he will pay attention when other jobs become available to him, but that he loves things here at Wake, particularly the way he and his staff are treated by AD Ron Wellman.

Not suprisingly, Coach artfully dodged anything specific (as he should, I suppose, even if it's very frustrating to us fans) but at this point I'm satisfied to just be happy with the fact that Grobe is still here.

If you're interested, News 14 has the video up on their website.

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Grobe Staying at Wake - Not Leaving for Arkansas  

Reports this morning indicate that Coach Grobe will not be leaving Wake Forest to become the new head coach at Arkansas. Whether or not he ever actually planned to is tough to say at this point.

The Old Gold & Black student newspaper (which I now have more respect for after this story) reports having talked to Ron Welllman this morning and learning that Grobe is staying at Wake after having slept on the decision overnight. Here is the link to the Old Gold & Black story.

12:12 Update - Although things seemed pretty official when I first posted this morning, more and more news outlets are reporting Grobe is definitely staying, including ESPN. At 11:00 this morning there was an impromptu fan rally outside the Pruitt Football center on campus. It looked like about 50 people showed up and the "event" mostly consisted of people standing around talking and looking relieved. Several players, including Riley Skinner, walked by while people were out there. According to the players Coach is currently not on campus and nothing official has been said to the players. Nonetheless, they are hearing the same things we are and are feeling much better about the whole situation.

I will continue to follow this story throughout the day, but as of now it looks like all is right here in Winston-Salem.

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Grobe to Arkansas Situation as of 1:00 AM  

Final update from me for tonight. The only thing that would make me post anything else would be something official, but it seems pretty clear that nothing but speculation will happen tonight. For what is being said by big media outlets, see my last post.

Being on campus I have conversations/hear of conversations with players on a somewhat regular basis, and not suprisingly tonight is the type of night when everyone wants to find out what they know. Interestingly, it seems there are some different perspectives of what's going on even among the team. It is mostly unanimous that Grobe was acting weird tonight both at practice and then at a meeting after. Some have said assistant coaches were crying, others that they weren't. Grobe definitely didn't say anything specific about Arkansas or any other situation, only that they need to focus on the bowl game and not anything else that may be going on. Some players don't seem overly concerned about it, others seem to be pretty stressed about it, some even to the point of saying they will be transferring.

At this point all we can do is wait and see what happens tomorrow. I haven't heard anything official from media relations (although I've asked them to keep me updated - but they don't always do that) about a press conference or anything else, but I've heard rumors of an 11:00 presser tomorrow so I'll probably head over there and see what's going on even if I don't hear anything. Hopefully we get this all resolved tomorrow. Either way, I just want to have this situation done as soon as possible.

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Rumors - Grobe to Arkansas  

I've been avoiding this all day, partly because I'm busy and also because I prefer to have solid information. Nonetheless, this is looking worse and worse, don't know what to make of this most recent publication from the Arkansas News Bureau...It's the most concrete I've seen...

Grobe is New Razorback Coach

So I'm going to update this...
Really hard to decide what to make out of all this. Arkansas fans seem to think it's a done deal, we're of course all hoping it's not. According to one random unnamed Arkansas fan (clearly not credible, but doesn't mean he's wrong) the premium subscriber message board on Arkansas's Scout.com board says Grobe has agreed to a deal for over $1.5 million- I'm pretty much convinced this is made up, as I seriously doubt they have that kind of detailed info.

Meanwhile, WXII here in North Carolina supposedly says that "WXII says their sources at Wake say it is not a done deal. Not to mention the plane is still at RDU. Arkansas Foundation plane still at RDU with no flight plan scheduled," but this info also comes from an unsubstantiated source who does not make their connection to WXII clear.

At this point I don't feel like anyone can really say anything concrete. I certainly hope this isn't going to work out this way, on such short notice with apparently little communication between Coach, his players, and the school. Could be in for a long night...

4029 TV in Arkansas is also reporting this
is a done deal, including video of their news report. Be interesting to if all these people have to eat their words. I certainly hope so.

Now the Associated press is getting in on the act - a salary supplement has been approved for Grobe, which is a "strong indication" that he will be their next coach - ESPN/AP link. Also, Arkansas Morning News has a bit more in depth report.

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Hump Day  

No big news to report today that I didn't mention yesterday. Josh Adams won ACC Rookie of the Year, and other than that not much else has been going on.

The possibility of Grobe being interested in the Nebraska job has been a major source of concern, or if not concern at least interest, these last few days for Deac fans, as all of Nebraska waits to see What Tom Osbourne will do. Yesterday the Star-Herald of Scottsbluff/Gering, Nebraska reported that Osborne was looking primarily at LSU defensive coordinator Bo Pelini and Buffalo head coach Turner Gill, and stated that they were of particular interest because of their connections to the university. Suprisingly, that article made no mention of Grobe, although it did mention about 5 other coaches.

Today, however, the Star-Hearld is reporting that Grobe is being considered, making it sound like he's number three in the running behind Pelini and Gill, and mentioned that he met informally with Osborne earlier this week. More and more it's looking like there isn't even too much reason to be paying attention to this because most sources make it clear the other two are the primary candidates. Nonetheless, we'll wait and see what happens. I, for one, am confident we'll see Grobe on our sidelines again next fall.

Also saw today that the Lady Deacs are receiving votes in this week's AP basketball poll. Congrats and keep it up!

One last thing on an entirely different note, tonight is the beginning of Jimmy V Week on ESPN, which you almost definitely know if you pay any attention at all to ESPN (just try to go to their homepage right now). Nonetheless, the Jim Valvano speech from the 1993 ESPYs is one of my favorites. Being from Houston I've seen enough video footage of Valvano running across the court going crazy having won a national championship to make me sick to my stomach, but this speech makes me feel entirely different. Although you'll be able to see it on any of the ESPN networks tonight at 7, I enjoy it enough to put it up here. If you've got 10 minutes to spend on it, I think it's worth it.

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Thanks, Grobe  

I'm trying to get away from just reporting every single bit of Wake-related news I find. I realize it's just as easy for you to go check the WSJ website as it is for me, so I'm going to try to focus more on my own analysis, announcement type things like the Clemson game time, and news that is especially interesting or from an obscure source you may not find otherwise.

This falls into the final category, from WRAL in Raleigh. David Glenn has written an excellent article about Wake's success, breaking down our program and coaching style, giving much credit to Grobe and staff. I couldn't agree more. Thanks to CHillDeac for bringing attention to it on the boards.

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What to talk about on a bye week? A backup at one position moving to a backup at another!  

It’s a bye week, which means of course they very little is happening and we probably won’t have much significant news through this weekend. That being said, Dan Collins of the WS Journal reports that the Deacs are looking at moving redshirt sophomore Ted Randolph from tight end to defensive end, at least for this fall.

With two solid 5th year seniors ahead of him on the depth chart at TE, the move will certainly not have any negative impact on the offense. I'm not sure if he's played in a game, but Randolph has no catching or blocking stats. Defensively it’s hard to make any definitive statements about what affect the move will have, if any. What we do know is that he has some size (6-4 278) and having been a tight end at least a little bit of quickness, so perhaps that bodes well. Either way I doubt anyone could say much at this point since no one has ever seen him play on that side of the ball. I trust the coaches won’t put him on the field unless he is ready to contribute.

It’s pretty much a non event, but it can’t hurt to bring a little attention to it.

In other news (but the same article), Riley says his arm feels fine, and even felt 100% against Maryland. Sure Riley, sure. Nonetheless coach says he can’t use it as an excuse anymore, so I expect to see Riley very near 100% at Duke next week.

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