With depth and talent, Wake Forest should be much-improved

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Posted 6:26AM on Wednesday, August 18, 2004

It was just Wake Forest's luck. After years and years at the bottom of the Atlantic Coast Conference one of the teams the powerhouses of the league always beat up on the Demon Deacons were finally ready to turn the corner and start battling back. Then the ACC expanded, inviting more elite teams into the league. But fourth-year coach Jim Grobe, who has assembled the best Wake Forest team in years, isn't worried. ``If you talk to our people, they know what we're getting into, they know how tough it's going to be,'' Grobe said. ``But at the same time, I think we're going to be capable of competing.'' Wake Forest should be one of the most improved teams in the ACC this year. Grobe has talent and depth probably not enough to beat Florida State, Miami and Virginia Tech, but enough that no team will take them for granted. Consistency will be the biggest challenge for the Deacons. They went 5-7 a year ago, with impressive wins over North Carolina State and Boston College. Then they turned around and lost to a bad North Carolina team and were embarrassed against Connecticut. Finding a balance will fall to the quarterback, and it appears junior Cory Randolph will fill that role most of the time. Randolph got a good challenge for the starting job from Ben Mauk, a redshirt freshman who was impressive in the spring game by going 6-of-8 for 102 yards. He was also mobile, rushing seven times for 93 yards and a touchdown. Randolph was a rookie last year, and completed 58.5 percent of his passes for 1,773 yards. But he also had more interceptions (10) than touchdown passes (eight). Still, Grobe is sticking with him, for now. ``We feel pretty good about Ben Mauk backing Cory up,'' Grobe said. ``Cory may give us a better opportunity to run more option. You're torn with a guy like Cory because he does run the ball well, but he also throws the ball well.'' It wouldn't be out of the question for Mauk to run the offense in a few series per half that's how Grobe worked Randolph in two years ago when he was James MacPherson's backup. Either quarterback will have running back Chris Barclay to get them out of plenty of jams. Barclay who finished the regular season last year as the ACC's leading rusher with 1,192 yards and 12 touchdowns and averaged 99.3 yards per game. Barclay hurt his ankle early in the season against Boston College last year, and Grobe said it took the running back some time to fully heal from it. Assuming he is healthy this year, Barclay should put up even bigger numbers and be considered one of the top running backs in the country. ``He's a durable guy overall I think the injury at Boston College was kind of a fluke,'' Grobe said. ``He's not a really big guy, he's just hard to get a solid hit on, and he's a pretty tough guy. He's not afraid to run it up inside.'' The biggest key for Wake Forest will be improving its defense. It's gotten worse in each of Grobe's three seasons, going from sixth to seventh and then eighth in the league in total defense. Grobe has made a commitment to improvement: Of his 18 recruits this year, 13 are slated to play defense. Six are listed as linebackers and three at defensive end. ``Going into recruiting, we felt like defense was our need, especially in the defensive line and linebacker positions, so we aggressively went after those two positions,'' he said. ``I don't think there's any question we've really helped ourselves on the defensive line, and then at the linebacker position, we've got guys that we feel like can play. ``A couple of them may have to play really early. That was something that was key for us.'' Since the Deacons began practicing earlier this month, most of the defensive positions have been open tryouts. Grobe is easing the burden by moving away from the 3-3-5 formation he's used to the more conventional 4-3. ``The defensive linemen are happy, because more of them are on the field,'' Grobe said. ``We haven't had the ability to do that in the past, so that's what I'm excited about. Through recruiting, we've brought in more defensive linemen and we haven't had the opportunity to play more than three until now. ``Not that we're not going to throw everything out we did in the past, because some of the stuff we did was pretty good. The best thing now is we match up a little better.''