Wake Forest Football coach Dave Clawson chatted with the media following the annual Spring Game Saturday afternoon. Here’s his full comments in Q&A format:Opening…

Wake Forest Football coach Dave Clawson chatted with the media following the annual Spring Game Saturday afternoon. Here’s his full comments in Q&A format:

Opening statement:
Clawson: “I thought it was a nice crowd. It was great to have the cheer team and the band there and overall I thought the day had good energy. We had a good spring. I think of the 15 practices, I’d say 14 of ’em, we got better. I think we wasted one like in the third week. But other than that, I thought our guys came out prepared to get better and improve. I think, again, I’ve been here long enough that I’m going to sound like a broken record in the spring game because everything that you get excited about and every good play you make, the flip side is on the other side of the ball. So it’s great to see Hank (Bachmeier) hit Horatio on a post route early for a touchdown.

4 takeaways from Wake Forest’s spring game

Wake Forest finished off their spring game this afternoon as the Black team defeated the Gold 21-13.

While the spring game is just one snapshot of a month long of work, it’s the most public one. You know what that means? We get to absolutely rip every play to shred and make concrete statements and questions off of every play.

Like everything else, there were highs and lows. That’s what inherently happens when you play against yourself, an 80 yard touchdown is great for the offense but a defensive coordinator is going to rip his hair out if he has any. An interception is a loud cheer from the defense and an audible groan from the offensive coordinator.

Today was nothing more than a day of work, especially with the first half being more of THUD than actual tackling. With that, there can be actual positive and negative takeaways from today. I compiled four things that I saw from watching through today’s scrimmage.

HANK BACHMEIER IMPRESSES

Wake Forest needed to be better at quarterback point blank.

After a disastrous season with Mitch Griffis at the helm, and the duo behind him not exactly being a makic cure, Wake turned to the portal this offseason in order to improve on a dismal 4-8 season. They plucked Hank Bachmeier out of the portal, a journeyman of sorts.

With Michael Kern getting hurt early in spring camp, Bachmeier absorbed all of the first team snaps. Bachmeier took led the first team offense during the spring game and looked good doing it. His first drive he went 3-for-3 for 69 yards, all to Horatio Fields, which was capped by a 46-yarder for a touchdown. Throughout the next few drives you saw quick decisions, sharp throws, and even a willingness to move around.

There was some bad, which is expected with a quarterback learning a new system. He took a couple of sacks, he had a throw to Taylor Morin in the seam that if it was a bit more on the money would’ve been a long completion, and he was picked off by Demarcus Rankin on an out route intended for Walker Merrill.

But on the whole, you saw competency, something that was lacking last year. Bachmeier finished 24-40 for 310 yards, one touchdown, and an interception.

While I can’t have a full section for Jeremy Hecklinski, I’d be a fool to not say he didn’t look sharp, even though it did come against a depleted Wake Forest second unit. Looking towards the future, he looks like an option you’d want to hold onto after a 12-21, 204 yard, and three touchdown performance.

WAKE NEEDS TO ADD DEPTH AT TWO CRUCIAL SPOTS

It can’t be all good, right?

Demond Claiborne is going to be a star come this fall. Guys like Davaughn Patterson, Nick Anderson, Evan Slocum, Dashawn Jones, and Jamare Glasker will help this team next year. That being said, the depth behind them needs to grow, both from internal options and the portal.

Wake signed a bevy of defensive backs this past cycle, so there’s hope with young bodies, but you’d rather them prove themselves versus just throwing them out there because they’re the only ones left, or worse running your starters into the ground.

The sentiment is the same with Claiborne. Tate Carney will be back this fall, but with David Egbe on the shelf for a while, Will Towns medically disqualified, and Drew Pickett oft-injured, Wake spent the spring game with one healthy scholarship running back. Ty Clark will be enrolling this spring, but a veteran option to spell Claiborne feels like a smarter way to go about this season.

JURY STILL OUT ON OFFENSIVE LINE

This one will have to go back for review of the spring game.

There also wasn’t a way to to necessarily win this position in the spring game. It caught my eye how much they were trying to move the offensive line horizontally with certain personnel in, which worked, but also might be a tell that they aren’t exactly comfortable with who they had where and wanted to mitigate any mishaps. I wasn’t in love with the reps Erik Russell had, although I think this defensive line is going to be one of the best in the ACC, so I’ll give hI’m some slack there.

Same story here as the quarterback position though. You have to earn your trust back after what occurred last year, so forgive me for being a bit hesitant to say that it’s been fixed in one offseason.

THRILLED WITH WIDEOUTS AND DEFENSIVE LINE

Speaking of the defensive line, I think this group is going to be excellent. They look like they can go two deep at each defensive end position and I love the defensive tackles. I wouldn’t hate one more addition at tackle for depth purposes, but that’s more of a luxury than need at this point.

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