WINSTON-SALEM — Propelled by the COVID-19 pandemic, a roller coaster of a college football season has seen Wake Forest sit through two open weekends to this point and left its players with a common hunger.
“We've been here for five months and only played three games,” defensive back Ja’Sir Taylor said. “We’re just ready to hit somebody else other than our own team.”
Having played three games in five weeks, sure they’re ready for some physicality against some fresh faces. But in the bigger scheme of things, the Demon Deacons say they want to hit their stride heading into a stretch of eight Atlantic Coast Conference games — with another bye week sandwiched in there — to finish off an 11-game regular season.
Wake Forest was well into the thick of its schedule by this time a year ago, already having played six games to this point and posting a 5-1 record.
“It’s definitely awkward,” offensive lineman Loic Ngassam Nya said. “It's thrown my whole system off a little bit. … I feel like even though it's awkward, I feel like we’re still getting the same amount of work and we’re still ready for whenever we are going to play or whoever we're going against.”
Sitting with a 1-2 record, the Demon Deacons play host to ACC foe Virginia on Saturday afternoon, following their latest open date in which they hoped to make the most of practice repetitions in the absence of game experience.
“You make more improvement in game reps because that gives you the film and the experience to teach off of,” coach Dave Clawson said. “Practice reps, especially in the positions that we’re younger are really important.”
Here are three things to know about the Demon Deacons as the Virginia game approaches:
Work for young players
The Demon Deacons practiced as a team on Tuesday and Thursday of the off week. Veteran players were given Wednesday off as the focus shifted to giving reps to less experienced players during a 90-minute practice period in Wake Forest’s quest to build depth.
“We took like the 25 players on our team that had been multiple-year players and had probably over (roughly) 1,000 game reps, we gave them Wednesday off and practiced all the younger guys,” Clawson said. “And so in a lot of positions, the two was the one. And the three was the two and we ran a normal practice, and we just gave those guys a ton of reps.”
Clawson hopes that additional work for younger players pays off, particularly in a secondary group that relies on several such athletes.
“Any time that those guys can get out there and communicate, whatever the checks are, or the support calls, so it becomes second nature, that's really important,” Clawson said. “That is a position that we have to have growth at and I think we will. I feel really good about the talent we have there. I think we've done a really good job recruiting that position and I think we're close to being back to where we were at one point. But again, those guys need reps, and so in that way, the bye week was very productive. And now we'll find out how productive when we play a game again.”
Time off to heal
In addition to managing youth in the secondary, the Demon Deacons have juggled injuries to hit the position.
Senior safety Luke Masterson suffered an ankle injury against Campbell two weeks ago and is expected to be out for at least the next three games. The Demon Deacons hope to get him back after an open date the first week of November, Clawson said.
Trey Rucker, who played some against Campbell as he made his season debut in a return from injury, is listed as a co-starter with Nick Andersen at the safety spot formerly occupied by Masterson.
“With Coby (Davis) out and Luke out, (Rucker) becomes one of our most experienced safeties and he's only a true sophomore,” Clawson said. “You can't have enough good players in the secondary. … He's played more football than any other safety other than Nasir (Greer), so getting him back helps us. He's still relatively young, but he played a lot of football last year and has confidence to him and we know what he's capable of, but he's also missed a lot of time, so there’s going to be some rust there with him, as well.”
Greer is the starter at the other safety spot after missing the Campbell game with an injury.
“Having this break after Luke went down was really big because Trey Rucker played last year, but he was a freshman and he did silly freshmen things,” Taylor said. “He just came back from the injury so he wasn't out there with the team a lot, running the plays. He was in the meeting room learning it. But really getting them out there to get the feel of things again was really good because he needed it and I feel like he's really improved and he's ready to go.”
Guarding against over-preparation
It would've been easy to jump into preparation for the Virginia game immediately after the victory against Campbell, but Clawson said he wanted to place the focus on his own team before getting ready for the Cavaliers.
“I think the disadvantages (of bye weeks) are guys are just sick of practice,” Clawson said. “You can over-prepare for an opponent. I think sometimes if you spend more than seven or eight days on an opponent, it gets stale. So that's always the art of, OK, you have a bye week, and you have extra time, and even though as a staff, we have our plan together, I think you can introduce the opponent too soon and by the time the game gets there, the players are stale of the game plan.”
Clawson said the coaching staff introduced Virginia to Wake Forest players over the weekend after a week of worrying solely about their own team.
“When you have a few more days, you can, instead of one day doing all your situations, you can do first and second down on Saturday,” Clawson said, “and then maybe add red zone on Sunday, and then third down on Tuesday. You get a little bit more time to focus on some of the situational stuff.”
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This article originally appeared on Times-News: Three things to know as Demon Deacons step back on roller coaster season after time off
