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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE MEDIA CONFERENCEApril 23, 2014Dave ClawsonDAVE CLAWSON: We're looking forward to Saturday, and we've had a productive spring. We'd love to have 15 more practices, which I think is always the case as a new staff when you're implementing new systems. But really so far pleased with the work our young men have put in and the effort and attention they've given us, and again, we're laying the foundation right now and look forward to what it looks like on Saturday, and then we have a lot of work to do in the summer before we open camp. Q. I wanted to ask you first and foremost, coming in like you alluded to and wanting more practices, with you trying to implement what you want to do, what did you really take away from the guys and how they responded to you? What would you say you can really take as your big points out of the spring? DAVE CLAWSON: Well, number one, they've been very responsive and very willing. All the things that we've asked them to do, I think they've given us their very best effort. Right now the execution level isn't where we need it to be, but I think that's somewhat to be expected. When you're first learning a system, there's a lot of processing going on which sometimes prevents guys from playing at the speed that you need them to play with, and that's something that you hope gets better as you install everything a second time in the summer. Q. What have you been doing kind of system wise to put your stamp on the program this spring? DAVE CLAWSON: Well, I think as much as anything, it's just you're establishing how you're doing everything. How we left, how we run the off‑season conditioning program, the tempo and the pace at which we practice, how we organize practice, the amount of time that we spend on situational football. I think these are all changes and adjustments these guys are going through, and every time we do something for the first time, it's not done with the speed or with the attention to detail that you like, and the second time you do it, it gets better. Before you play your first game, hopefully you get four or five or six opportunities to work those situations and you become more and more efficient in terms of how you operate. Again, we've got a long ways to go, but I think that's to be expected. You compound being in a new system with the amount of new players we're breaking in, we're a football team that graduated 13 senior starters, so not only do you have guys learning a new system, but you have guys really that are being asked to give meaningful reps for the first time in their career, so there's a very steep learning curve going on right now. Q. What's your assessment of your quarterback position at this point in the spring and how do they match up with the offense you want to be running? DAVE CLAWSON: Again, it's a work in progress. I don't think we've had a guy that's taken control of the position yet, but in fairness to them, we're still going through the installation part of it. They're going to have to work very hard during the summer on their own when they get those opportunities, and we're going to have to perform at a much higher level once we get to the fall than we are right now. Q. Talk about being in the Carolinas, being the head coach of Wake Forest and being in the same area that you were the coach of Richmond. DAVE CLAWSON: Well, we certainly enjoyed living in the Southeast when we were here about a decade ago, and even a little less than that in '07, and there was a lot of reasons I was attracted to this job. I think number one, the institution itself is a first class place in everything we do. The area of the country is absolutely beautiful. I think we've always wanted to end up back in this area, and certainly feel very honored and privileged to be the head coach at Wake Forest. There's so many things about this position that made it attractive, and certainly the area of the country is one of them. Q. What do you guys have to work on for the start of the 2014 season? DAVE CLAWSON: How much time do you have? We've got a lot of work to do in a lot of areas, but like I said earlier, the most impressive thing to me is that the players on the team have been very receptive. They've been very responsive. We have not gotten‑‑ very little resistance in terms of the things that we're trying to do, and I love their enthusiasm and their work ethic. If a team gives you effort and they give you their attention, all those other things we can coach and fix in time, so again, overall very pleased with what our players have given us so far in terms of their effort and attention. Q. I wanted to follow up on the question about the quarterbacks. Can you just kind of handicap the race? Who are the guys you're looking at and what are their strengths and what do they have to improve to emerge as the guy? DAVE CLAWSON: Well, really when we first got here, we only had one quarterback on scholarship, and that was Tyler Cameron. We moved Kevin Sousa back from receiver to get through the spring. Tyler has a very live arm. He has good arm strength. He's got good athleticism in the pocket. And Kevin is, as you'd expect from a guy that played some receiver here, is a very gifted athlete, has the ability to make plays with his feet, his ability to make plays when a play breaks down and improvise has been impressive. We're still in the installation phase, so to give any final evaluation of where we are with those two isn't fair to either of them just because this is the first time they've had everything on their plate. Certainly we have two quarterbacks coming in that we recruited that we told those young men they'd have an opportunity to compete for the position, so we're not going to be naming the starter at the end of spring football. I mean, again, I think we're too young in the system to do that, and we've told freshmen they'd be given the opportunity to compete. Like I said, we're not in a rush to make the wrong decision. We're going to let this thing play out and probably not name a starter until 10 days to two weeks before the first game. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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