	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 17, 2018

Dave Clawson

Greensboro, North Carolina

THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by Wake Forest head coach Dave Clawson.

Coach, if you could give us an opening statement, then we'll take questions.

DAVE CLAWSON: Bye week. We're starting to get a little bit healthier, which needs to happen for us. We head down to Florida State this week, play a very improving Florida State football team.

Q. Obviously you played two of the better teams in the country. What do you determine in terms of these problems are on defense we need to fix instead of running into two offenses that you may not see their like again this year?
DAVE CLAWSON: Well, whenever you give up a big play or don't have success, it's always an evaluation of is it what you're doing or who you're doing it with. A lot of the big plays that we've given up, I mean, a lot of times it's a combination of both. In a lot of cases, to the first half of the season, that was one of my film studies, is looking at the big plays we've created and the big plays we've given up, is a lot of them are because of misalignments, miss-assignments or misfits. That's something we have to continue to work on, try to improve.

Certainly Notre Dame and Clemson have very good and very talented football teams, and they're undefeated. But part of the reason the margin of victory became so big for them is things that we did to ourselves. To beat teams of that caliber, you can't do any of that stuff, let alone the amount that we did in those two football games.

Those are the things we're working hard to get corrected. I think if we do that, we will play better. We are not as healthy as we'd like to be right now. Guys are playing a little bit more right now and have bigger roles than maybe we projected in the beginning of the season. But that's football. That happens in every program. That's just part of it.

Q. Speaking of your defense, what is your assessment of Carlos Basham growth?
DAVE CLAWSON: Boogey is getting better. He's starting for the first time. I think he's finding out that it's not as easy as he thought it might be, but he's competing, he's improving. He has made some big plays for us. I think Boogey is on his way to becoming a very good player in the ACC. I wouldn't say he's quite there yet, but he's getting there. He's working towards that. There's no doubt in my mind it's going to happen.

Q. I'm sure you've done this a million times, could you walk me through Greg Dortch's development, when you realized you had something special there in him?
DAVE CLAWSON: Well, obviously we were the first. I don't know if he had any other Power 5 offers, but we were the first one that offered him at this level. He came to a camp of ours. We watched his high school tape. What we ask of our slot position is a little bit different because we're in an RPO offense. The size wasn't a big of negative for us because that position doesn't block too often for us.

We saw a kid that had really good ball skills, good change of direction, had kick and punt returning skills. When we first got him here, we made a decision to redshirt him. In retrospect, he probably could have helped us that first year a little bit. When it's on the bubble there, we always kind of try to redshirt kids, get that extra year of development.

His first year here when he was redshirting, at that point we were very good on defense, 2016. He would make play after play on scout team against our defense. Our defensive coordinator at the time, Mike Elko, would say that kid is as dynamic as anybody we defend. He's going to be really, really good. I think after his redshirt freshman year, going into the spring, we felt we may have a really special player on our hands.

Obviously the year he had last year, what he's done this year, on that one we were right.

Q. You mentioned his size, leading receiver. Do you have to manage him in practice physically or is he one of those guys that has the energy and durability to keep going?
DAVE CLAWSON: He's in really good shape. He's got a lot of energy. He loves football. He hates coming out for a rep. Yes, I mean, in a perfect world he's a guy you'd love to be able, once every three or four series, give him a break and spell him. But that's easier to do sometimes in theory than reality. Whenever the snap seems important, it's hard to think of a play you don't want him out there.

We're going to try to spell him a little bit moving forward, give him a little break. That's one of the reasons we moved Kendall Hinton to slot. We could give Greg a little bit of a break.

Q. Out of practice, talking with Scotty this morning, he told me that's the best he felt since camp. What kind of difference can he make if he's back to 100% for your offense?
DAVE CLAWSON: I mean, he can make a huge difference. Going into the season, we really thought Scotty was a difference maker that we had on the outside. You look at the year he had last year, especially the second half of the season, how many big plays he made for us. Not having him has hurt us. Getting him back would be a major help.

He's looked good the last two weeks. I think having some time off, the bye week, him getting some confidence back, has really helped him. That would be a big boost for our offense, to have a healthy Scotty Washington.

Q. Have you seen him become a bit more confident as he's gotten back health-wise full strength?
DAVE CLAWSON: Yeah, it's hard to develop confidence when you're not healthy and you're not getting reps. We have a new quarterback from a year ago. There's a timing involved. Even though we teach things similar, in the same way, things are always a little different with a different quarterback.

Just getting him and Sam on the same page, I've seen that connection the last two weeks in the timing, just looks a lot better than it has since at camp when he was healthy.

Q. Luke Masterson, how is he playing this year? He missed the first three games with a knee issue. How far has he come since he got there, including a redshirt year?
DAVE CLAWSON: I mean, Luke has come a long way. Number one, he's a great kid. He's a do-right guy. He works hard, loves football. Has gotten better, become very versatile for us. He's a guy that has really improved every year he's been here.

He plays a lot of football for us. He's very valuable to us. He's smart both in the classroom and athletically. He's only a redshirt sophomore, so he's still got two years left.

Q. He was flying low under the radar there. Has he surprised you? He was forced into playing last season because of injuries.
DAVE CLAWSON: No. I mean, that's why we offered him a full scholarship, is we expected him to be a good player. He's progressing in the similar way to a lot of our players. They come in here as redshirts, they get on scout team, get stronger. When Jessie Bates got hurt last year, he was kind of pushed into a role in the second half of the season probably before he was ready for it. His first start was at Notre Dame. That was baptism by fire. He kind of settled in, had a good spring, had a good fall camp.

Now that he's bounced back from the knee injury, he's one of the guys that the light gets a little brighter every week with him. He's a really improved player for us over the last year and two years ago.

Q. You mentioned in the intro that you saw Florida State as much improved. Where are you seeing those improvements on film?
DAVE CLAWSON: Well, number one, the results on the field. They beat Northern Illinois, then beat Louisville, really should have beaten Miami, had them beat. I think the quarterback has become a lot more decisive. Florida State has always had great offensive skill, I mean, between Akers, Patrick, the wideouts they have. Sometimes when you install a new offense, a new coaching staff, getting the quarterback to see things the way the coach wants him to see them just takes time.

If you watch the way Francois is playing in terms of how quickly the ball gets out of his hand, you see him go through his progressions. He's become a lot more decisive. The way he's reading some of their RPO stuff, he's also a very good runner. Defensively their numbers are good. They're in the top half of the ACC in scoring defense, total defense, rushing defense. They statistically on defense are in the top half of the league in everything they're doing just about. I think on offense, they're just playing faster. It starts with the quarterback being comfortable in the system. To me the last two or three games, he's looked a lot more comfortable than he did the first two or three.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, coach.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297