Way-Too-Early Wake Forest Preview
Wake Forest and high-scoring used to go together like oil and water. In 2016 they finished 118th in scoring offense. Most Notre Dame fans remember when they visited South Bend in 2015 and tried to play keep away for that entire game as well. They relied 100% on their defense to keep them in games.
Things changed drastically last season. Perhaps it was due to them being unleashed from the chains of “Wakeyleaks” or maybe it was just things coming together with a veteran quarterback, but the Demon Deacons shot up to 20th in scoring offense last season.
I’m sure Irish fans were shocked to see 48-37 when they visited last fall, but it’s not that shocking when you think of what they did for most of the year. Notre Dame plays Wake again this fall in week four, this time in Winston Salem, North Carolina. Dave Clawson’s program may have the kind of talent to put up over 30 points again this time around. In the first month of the season, this could very well be the Notre Dame defense’s stiffest test.
Good News for Notre Dame
A huge reason for the improvement on offense had to do with the play of senior quarterback John Wolford. The Irish didn’t face a quarterback who was more efficient, accurate and adept at running zone read and RPOs all of last season.
Wolford is gone, though. He’s likely going to be replaced by Kendall Hinton. He may offer the same kind of running threat that Wolford did, but Hinton has not proven to be anywhere closer to the passer Wolford was. It will be interesting to see if the offense becomes more one-dimensional with the change at quarterback.
While the offense made a drastic leap from ‘16 to ‘17, the defense took a big step back under new coordinator Jay Sawvel. Scoring defense dropped from 76th from 23rd. They were 22nd in S&P+ on defense in Mike Elko’s last season at Wake. That ranking dropped to 66th under Sawvel.
They declined despite having two of the best defenders in the ACC on their roster. Defensive end Duke Ejiofor was a disruptive presence up front, but his eligibility has run out. Safety Jesse Bates was a playmaker and helped erase a lot of mistakes all over the field, but he chose to declare for the NFL Draft.
Throw in both starting inside linebackers, Jaboree Williams and Grant Dawson, and they’ll be looking to replace a lot of production at that spot as well. Those two combined for 175 tackles, 23.5 of them for loss last season. The defense is going to have less talent than they had last season and they were average at best on that side of the ball.
Bad News for Notre Dame
Wolford is a big loss, but Hinton, or whoever the new quarterback will be, is going to have some weapons to throw to.
Slot receiver Greg Dortch missed the last part of the 2017 campaign. He was an explosive playmaker before he went down for the season with an injury, though. His 9 touchdowns in 8 games were impressive and he's a dangerous player whenever he touches the football.
Dortch is back and ready to compete this spring. He’s joined by another jitterbug receiver in Tabari Hines and massive target on the outside in the 6’5 225 Scotty Washington. They both had breakout seasons. Together with Dortch it has to be one of the better wide receiver groups the Irish will face this fall.
Running back Matt Colburn also returns and he’ll be running behind five returning starters on the offensive line. Colburn finished with 904 yards on the year. 721 of those came in the final six games. The offense went to another level when he emerged and the running game improved by almost 1.5 yards per carry in the month of November.
Although there are question marks with the defense, Sawvel does have three returning starters in the secondary led by cornerbacks Amari Henderson and Essang Bassey (combined 5 interceptions and 28 pass breakups). Free safety Cameron Glenn led the team in tackles in ‘17 and is back too.
The defense was very strong when it came to being disruptive, finishing 26th in Havoc Rate. I mentioned some of the players they lost that contributed to that, but linebacker Justin Strnad played a lot behind the two starters and made the most out of his snaps. He’s a dynamic blitzer that finished with 4.5 sacks, 8.5 TFLs, and a couple of forced fumbles.
Having that experience on the back end of the defense will likely give Sawvel free reign to bring a ton of pressure and the Irish will have to be able to handle it in their first road game in 2018.
Spring Questions
The biggest thing Clawson needs to answer is at quarterback. Can Hinton cement himself as the guy and can he or someone else do what Wolford did when it comes to make quick, intelligent decisions? Though the line returns all five starters and they were strong in protection last season (18th in Adjusted Sack Rate), they were helped greatly by Wolford getting the ball out quickly.
The defense has to find replacements for Ejiofor, Bates and at inside linebacker. In addition to that, they need to be better as a group within the scheme. With an offense that played fast and scored quickly, the defense struggled to play opposite that.
The number of big plays given up (116th in the nation of plays of 30 yards or more against them) was troubling. They need to find a way to continue the boom minus some big time talent while fixing all of the busts.
Can they figure that out in year two for Sawvel? They better or else they will have to rely on their offense to beat a difficult opponent like Notre Dame in September.