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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL KICKOFFJuly 22, 2016Dave ClawsonMarquel LeeTyler HayworthCharlotte, North Carolina THE MODERATOR: We will start with an opening comment by Coach Clawson. COACH CLAWSON: Thanks, even, for being here. It's great to be back at ACC Media Days, and certainly at Wake Forest we're looking forward to the start of the 2016 season. We open camp on August 4th. That's the player report date. We've made a significant investment in our program the last two years at Wake Forest. I think if you look at our facilities, the Bob McCreary Field House is as nice of an indoor as there is in the country. That just opened in January. We're continuing to build a new practice field, a new grass field, turf field, a new sports performance center going up in the next six months, but more importantly, the investment we've made in our new players. We've redshirted a majority of players. Last year 18 freshmen played significant roles in our program, including at times during the year seven different offensive players, seven different freshmen started at different times. We had overall 18 players that played 200 snaps or more as freshmen. All told we had 31 freshmen and sophomores in our two deep. The recruiting, the redshirting, every measurement in our program is up, whether it's GPA, APR, strength numbers, speed numbers. We are still a relatively young team but a very experienced young team. We probably have more sophomores that have played snaps than any team in the country. This certainly in our three years there as a staff is the best team we've had since we've been there and firmly believe that the results will start to show themselves on the field this year, that we'll be a much-improved football team. We're looking forward to get it started. I'll pass this to Ty Hayworth representing our offense. THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for Ty. Q. Two years ago Wake Forest had trouble protecting the quarterback and trouble blocking for the running game. Some improvement last year. Now you have four returning starters. How much better is this offensive line now than what we saw two years ago? TYLER HAYWORTH: I mean, we're so much more experienced than what we were two years ago, and even last year, because we had three guys at one point who never played a snap of college football up front. Now we're returning four, five guys that have played solid games. We've started to gel together in summer workouts and in winter workouts. We're expecting to make big strides, even bigger strides than we did last year, give the quarterback plenty of time to throw the ball. Q. What can you say under Dave Clawson, what you've taken away from him and what can you say about the environment, what he's trying to change, how you've bought into it at this point? TYLER HAYWORTH: For me personally, when Coach Clawson got here, it just made me realize, like, another level of college football from what we were playing at. The work that really has to go in to succeed at a high level. Coach Clawson has instilled in us concepts and ways of working to make us even better coming in on Saturdays, getting extra work throughout the day, extra film time, just getting the numbers and getting work in there really changes everything for us. Q. As a redshirt senior now, can you talk about how your path has been? TYLER HAYWORTH: Coming out of Kingsport, Tennessee, a small town. I wasn't heavily recruited. I had to go to, like, 12 different camps going into my senior year of high school. Wake gave me an opportunity. I love the school. I love the academics. I love the family vibe that I got from the school, just how everything is so close, togetherness. I made that decision. It probably was the best decision I ever made in my life because Wake Forest has changed me, made me a man, just let me grow up and be the person I knew I could be. From that and football, I've grown even more because I've had some incredible coaches. Since Coach Clawson has been here, I've learned to take my game to an entire new level coming into my redshirt senior year. Q. Coach Clawson mentioned all the facility improvements you have had. Tell us what that means to the players. TYLER HAYWORTH: It means a lot. When I first got here, we had just three outdoor practice fields and a not very large weight room. Now we have the indoor facility, which is incredible. We don't have to worry about what the weather is outside, if we can practice, run, do our workouts. We have a brand-new strength facility that is in place for an even larger strength facility that is coming up in the next few years. Even this is a higher step up. We now have some of the best equipment and best facilities around the country. It gives us, like, the confidence that people believe in us to where we can work even harder to achieve the success we know we can achieve. Q. You have two young quarterbacks that experienced some measures of success during last season. Different styles of quarterbacks. How does that benefit this offense this year? TYLER HAYWORTH: They're both great players. They provide something. One provides something that the other doesn't. For me as an offensive lineman, I'm just here to make sure that one of them has time to throw the ball, to open up holes. They both bring a lot to the table. I'm excited to see how everything plays out during training camp. THE MODERATOR: Ty, thank you. Marquel, if you could come up for your Q&A. Questions for Marquel. Q. When you think about consistency in your own game, and you have elevated your game over the last couple of years, what is it that you want to be able to do your senior year to close things out? MARQUEL LEE: I want to go out on top. Being here for three years already, not being able to go bowling, achieve the things we want to achieve as a team, I feel this is our year to do that. We came a long way from last season excelling as a defense. I feel like we can do that. Q. You started as a true freshman. How has that experience helped you personally, knowing you were not a redshirt freshman? You started young and have continued to play. MARQUEL LEE: I mean, it helped me realize that college football is no joke. Coming out of my first game I ever played in as a linebacker, it helped me understand that I have a long ways to go. Everything is good at this level. You can't take anything for granted. You have to find your edge, create a competitive advantage for yourself over your opponent. Q. You mentioned the defense. How much better can this defense be than it was a year ago? It's something that's been a calling card as you've been rebuilding the program the last couple of years. MARQUEL LEE: I feel like there's always room for improvement, as Coach Elko would say. This year what we harp on is paying attention to the details, getting the little things right. Everybody can do the big things, it's the little things that count in our defense that we want to excel at. Q. What can you say about the improvements in the linebackers, what your Mission Statement is for this coming season? MARQUEL LEE: At the linebacker position, we have a lot of young guys coming up with Jaboree Williams, Zack Wary, Demetrius Kemp, Thomas Brown, a senior like myself. We just have to gel together as a unit. We've been coming together as a unit through the off-season with our workouts and everything, getting in extra film sessions and everything. This year our objective, as Coach Clark Lea would say, we want to compete at the highest level as a unit, be the best in the ACC, and that's what we plan to do. Q. Looks like you lost four games last year by eight points or fewer. What do you see as the keys to winning those close games? MARQUEL LEE: I think it's our mentality going in as a defense. Whether or not the offense performs, we have to be on our A game and win football games for our team. Not time for sitting back, hoping the offense gives us something. We have to take advantage of what we know we can do and win the games for our team. THE MODERATOR: We'll excuse our student-athletes now and we'll continue with Coach Clawson's Q&A. Questions. Q. Your thoughts on how you see Dino Babers sitting in at Syracuse and what do you think of the offense he's bringing to the ACC? COACH CLAWSON: Dino took over at Bowling Green when I left to come to Wake Forest. What he did speaks for itself. The offense was very explosive. He led Bowling Green to two MAC title games and won one of them. Everywhere he's been, the offense has been prolific. It's certainly a unique style which will be tough to defend. I'm sure in time he'll do a great job there. I hope not too great, too early. But there's no doubt that he'll energize that program and I'm sure do a very good job. Q. Folks from Durham who know Kendall Hinton are wondering what is your other quarterback doing so great that keeps Kendall from not being the guy? COACH CLAWSON: Kendall is competing to be the guy. A year ago we went into the season, and Kendall was a true freshman. John Wolford was doing a real good job as our starting quarterback. John suffered a high ankle sprain against Syracuse. Kendall ended up playing probably sooner than we wanted him to. Did a courageous job, was playing at a high level. Then he got hurt in the Florida State game. We had a situation with seven to eight games left in the season, and our top two quarterbacks, who were a true sophomore and a true freshman weren't healthy. It really became a juggling act all year. Now we have two quarterbacks that we believe in both of them. We also have some other young guys in the program that we think have a great upside. We're letting those guys compete. They're healthy. They both have very good skill sets. We do not want to be a two-quarterback system. However, just looking at last year when neither of them was able to stay healthy, it's hard to imagine we go through a year where we don't need both of them. Those guys will split reps through camp and we'll try to get reps for the younger guys. John Wolford is an outstanding athlete and a good quarterback, and Kendall is as well. It's a good problem. It's a very good problem. And Kyle Kearns can certainly throw the ball. We're excited about Jamie Newman. I think we're going to take a quarterback a year and let guys compete. That's how the cream will rise to the top. Q. Mike Weaver is moving his way up at Wake Forest. What are you looking to see from him this season? What has he meant to the special teams, to the school as a whole? COACH CLAWSON: Our kicker, a great story. He was a guy that was not recruited out of high school. Went on, worked for a while. He was recruited by the previous staff. When I got there, all the reports were that he can't kick at this level. Some people just will themselves and work themselves into being very good players. Mike has done that. He's hit two game-winning field goals for us, in the win over Virginia Tech two years ago and the win over Army a year ago. He's older, got a maturity to him. A lot of kickers are I would not say type A. Mike is a type-A kicker, that the details matter to him. He's very conscientious. He's got two more years left. Again, last year our kickoff guy got hurt. I think Mike wore down a little bit. If we can keep him doing PATs and field goals this year, I think he'll have a really good season. Q. Obviously the quarterbacks are talked about a lot. The guys around them, the runningbacks as well as receivers, what can you say about the skill you have, youthful experience? COACH CLAWSON: From a skill standpoint, we've had a lot of issues on offense. A lot of it has to do with being young and inexperienced and not being as athletic and as fast. If you look at our last two recruiting classes, it's been heavy on quarterbacks, runningbacks and receivers. Those positions are internally as competitive as they've ever been. We have five or six runningbacks that I think can play. Whether it's a freshman like Cade Carney, Arkeem Byrd, those guys will play. Matt Colburn played as a true freshman. Tyler Bell played as a true freshman. Rocky Reid redshirted. Isaiah Robinson from up the road was a starting tail as a true freshman. We have five or six guys that I think are better than anything we inherited when we got there. These guys are battling out. I think runningbacks are like defensive linemen, you can never have too many. I've had years that your fourth, fifth tailback by the end of the year is the starter. We have depth. We have competition at the position. I think we're faster, we're more athletic. As our offensive line gets better, I think our runningbacks are going to get a lot better because you're better in front of them and the guys carrying the ball are more skilled and understand the system better. At wide receiver we've never had this type of depth. We have seven to eight guys that can play and give us reps and be really good contributors, with a couple of those guys that I think have really high-end ability. The exciting thing is every single one of them are freshmen and sophomore except for Jared Crump. Cortez Lewis started all last year. Tabari Hines, Chucky Wade. These guys played 600, 700 snaps of football as freshmen. Now they're a year older, a year stronger, understand the system better. That's when guys make the big jump, is that second year playing. We're going to have a whole bunch of guys on offense that hopefully collectively make that jump together. Q. Talk a little bit about your background in terms of getting the ball to the tight end, and Serigne with his 200 receptions, how much of that is him or the system? COACH CLAWSON: Every system you have, you're going to try to highlight your system. For us, Cam Serigne is one of best football players on our team. When we were at Bowling Green, we probably got the ball to our tightends as much as anybody in the country. We had two players in the MAC, Alex Bayer was on the St. Louis Rams, and the other Tyler Beck, was in camp with the New England Patriots. We had two pro-caliber players in the MAC playing tight end for us. When we got to Wake Forest, Cam Serigne was exactly what we were looking for. A guy who is athletic. He was really more of a receiver than a tight end. Now two years into our strength program, his lifting numbers are better, his body is better. I think now he can be a more effective in-line tight end. We've really been playing with a wide receiver at tight end which limits what you can do in the run game. Now Cam Serigne is 245, 250 pounds. He was power cleaning over 300 pounds in the weight room. He's squatting ridiculous numbers. He now looks like a tight end, not just athletically but physically. I think that will really help our run game. He is a complete football player. The defense can dictate to a tight end a little bit. It's easier to double a tight end than a receiver. That's where I think if we can get our outside receivers playing better, it will even open things up for Cam a lot more. Q. You detailed the challenges you faced offensively. By contrast, throughout much of the league there's an offensive explosion. 90% of the offensive performers are back, especially Florida State and Clemson. For a team that's been defense first, like Wake Forest, how much has this complicated your effort to build this program? COACH CLAWSON: I don't think what other teams do complicate our process at all. We have a blueprint that we believe in. Our focus is making sure that we're getting better, making sure we're recruiting at a high level, make sure we're retaining the players we bring in. I mean, people don't like to write about these things. But I think having an APR score of 994 speaks volumes that the people we're bringing in we're keeping. We're always going to be a developmental program. Florida State and Clemson are always going to recruit the top-10 players in the country, the five-star guys. The model at which we're going to build the program at Wake Forest is going to be different. We have to recruit guys that we believe can win in the ACC, that love football, that fit our school academically, that fit our school character-wise. We're going to have to steel players through development. That's why we redshirt so many of them. They're great players. They're always going to have great players going through there. I have got to make sure that we're recruiting guys that can develop into great players. Again, this year, you're never going to go as fast as you want, as quickly as you want, but this year in the field you're going to see tangible progress of our recruiting efforts and our development program in our offense. What that jump is, I don't know. 18 to 40? Probably not. But can it be another touchdown a game, another five points, another ten points? Absolutely. I think that jump is very attainable. We've been a top-40 defense. We're playing with in a conference with the offenses at Florida State, Clemson, North Carolina, Played Notre Dame a year ago, and our defense has been a top-40, top-30 defense for most of the last two years. If we can just get the offense a little bit better, I think there's going to be an opportunity to win a lot more games. Q. If you're always in a developmental process, aside from championships, how do you know that you've gotten there, wherever there is? COACH CLAWSON: Again, this is my fourth time of doing a rebuilding job. I always think there's indicators within the program that happen before you start winning more games. I didn't say we were always a developing program. I said our program is always going to be developmental in nature in terms of how we develop players. I think you can look around the country. There's schools that look somewhat like Wake Forest that are winning at a very high level. But the way they do that is different than maybe some of the tradition powers like Alabama, Clemson or Florida State. I believe there's a way to win everywhere. I think the process of how you do that isn't the same everywhere. We believe in our process at Wake Forest. I think this year we will take a nice step forward and become a much more competitive team that wins more games. Hopefully the year after that you take that next step, you're always improving. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. COACH CLAWSON: Thank you very much. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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