Frustrated: Deacons seek answers after loss

By Dan Collins
JOURNAL REPORTER
CHESTNUT HILL, Mass.


To make a run toward another ACC championship, Wake Forest will have to run the ball far better than it did in Saturday’s season opener at Boston College.

Of all the Deacons’ shortcomings in the 38-28 setback, none was more glaring than their inability to establish any semblance of an effective rushing attack. They began in encouraging fashion, gaining 21 yards on their first four attempts, but four long hours later had only four yards to show for 24 carries.

The debuts of Eagles’ head coach Jeff Jagodzinski and offensive coordinator Steve Logan commanded the most attention, but it was the defensive scheme devised by Frank Spaziani - the holdover defensive coordinator - that kept the Deacons frustrated all afternoon.

The frustration peaked with six minutes left when the Eagles stuffed fullback Rich Belton two plays in a row to take possession at midfield, effectively ending the Deacons’ comeback bid.

Afterward, Coach Jim Grobe accepted much of the blame, while stressing to his team that Saturday’s rushing performance was in no way acceptable. The four yards rushing were the fewest by Wake Forest since Florida State held the Deacons to minus-30 yards in 1998, in the sixth season of Jim Caldwell’s eight years as head coach.

“Coach Grobe said we’re going to be working pretty hard on it,” tight end John Tereshinski said. “We know we’ve got it. We know we have it.

“It’s going to take some hard work and determination and getting after it.”

Grobe acknowledged, in hindsight, that there were warning signs during preseason, signs that he didn’t heed as he should have. Instead, he rationalized, chalking the underwhelming performance in all three scrimmages up to the broiling August sun, the tired legs and the surgically reconstructed knee of Micah Andrews, the Deacons’ featured running back.

“Part of the problem was that it was so hot during August that I just thought we were kind of worn out and had dead legs,” Grobe said. “And I really felt like once we had a week to get back into game preparation that we would kind of get our feet back under us.

“Obviously that’s not the issue.”

As those who were along for last year’s storybook ride to the ACC championship understood, the best Wake Forest team ever really wasn’t that good on the ground. The Deacons rushed for 57 yards against Duke, 31 against Clemson and 62 against Virginia Tech, and by season’s end had averaged almost 50 rushing yards fewer than any of Grobe’s previous five teams.

The trend, then, raises the question. Just how good is the Deacons’ offensive line?

Senior Steve Justice is an All-ACC center. Junior Chris DeGeare is a huge (6-4, 362 pounds) and talented guard. Sophomore Jeff Griffin, who started nine games last season, didn’t start Saturday while recovering from a damaged posterior-cruciate ligament, but he did play quite a bit.

Sophomore Joe Birdsong started instead of Griffin, at the tackle opposite senior Louis Frazier. Senior Matthew Brim, the starting left guard, has started 20 games in his career, but spent last season as a backup to DeGeare and Frazier, before Frazier’s move to tackle.

The holes were so few and far between that Grobe couldn’t get a read on his backs’ ability to read them and react accordingly. Andrews finished with seven yards on seven carries. Sophomore Kevin Harris finished with 10 yards on four carries.

“The issue is we’ve got to get more push up front,” Grobe said. “We’ve got to get more determination out of our backs.

“I felt Kevin Harris did a couple of nice things when he came in. And honestly, until I look at the film I don’t know whether Micah had much to help him at all up front. But I know on those fourth-down plays we’ve got to do a better job up front.

“So we’ll go back to the drawing board.”

There was little to please Grobe in Saturday’s loss. He was disappointed with a defense that gave up 408 yards passing and five touchdowns while forcing the Eagles into one field-goal attempt.

He was disappointed in an offense that threw two interceptions in or near the BC end zone and couldn’t gain one yard at midfield for a first down.

He was disappointed that Sam Swank, last year’s All-ACC kicker and honorable mention punter, averaged just 31.3 yards on four punts.

And he was, perhaps most of all, disappointed that he and his coaching staff didn’t better prepare the Deacons for their first game. “The coaches as well as the team can look at this one and say ‘We really didn’t play well enough or coach well enough to win.’ ”Grobe said. “That’s a coaching thing. We’ve got to see that.

“If the kids aren’t doing it well we’ve got to demand it, and we’ve got to figure out a way to do it. That’s what I told the kids after the game: Don’t think that as coaches we’re not looking at ourselves, too. We’re all in this thing together.

“And I guess the thing is I really think we can be a good football team. I think we’ve got players. I think we’ve got guys who can make plays. We’ve got some things obviously that we can improve on.

“I’m encouraged that we can be a good team. I’m just really disappointed because I thought we could win (Saturday).”

Quarterback Riley Skinner and defensive end Matt Robinson were examined last night by both X-rays and MRIs. Skinner was knocked from the game in the third quarter by a separated shoulder and Robinson was sidelined by a sprained ankle suffered on the first play of the game.

Both are considered extremely doubtful for Saturday’s home game against Nebraska.