Jim Grobe post-spring game interview

Winston-Salem, NC - Wake Forest head coach Jim Grobe spoke with reporters following the White team's 21-10 win over the Black team in the Demon Deacons annual spring football game.

On kicking and punting: "I think we've got a couple of kickers and a couple of punters that we can win with. That's been our problem here for a while now. We really haven't had a very consistent kicking and punting game from the specialists, and I think we've got the potential to have that this fall."

On the state of things at wide receiver: "You just see flashes. I think you see some guys do some pretty spectacular stuff once in a while, but we just don't do it over and over again. We've been trying to play a lot of quarterbacks, and we've been tyring to distribute the ball to a lot of guys. I don't feel like we know much more today. I'm hoping that we can develop another receiver or two, so we're not just hanging our hat on [Michael] Campanaro."

"I think four or five guys have the potential to be that guy, but I couldn't say they showed that this spring. We've got to see some guys make a move in August. We've got a lot of talent out there. I think we've got a lot of good receivers. I just don't know that we've got any guys that you would say we've got to get the ball to that guy right now, because they're not consistent enough."

Coach, A.J. Marshall and Nikita Whitlock said the theme for the defense was take backs. Did you like what you saw? "Oh yeah, oh yeah. We were in practice last week and we were getting to the end of practice and the defense is gauging how many take backs we get and we needed one more take-back to reach our goal and lightning came in. We had to cancel practice. The guys wanted to wait until the lightning went away to finish practice."

"You won't find many guys wanting to stay out and finish practice, but that's become a point of emphasis. Our best teams the three years that we had that three bowl streak and won an ACC Championship, had our best three defensive football teams I think we had over 30 take backs each of those three years, so that's a point for our guys to stay on task about, because I think today the key to the game today was turnovers."

On Josh Harris: "He looked a little bit like Josh Harris. That's what I like. The thing I liked about Josh the two or three inside runs. He wasn't trying to bounce everything to the perimeter. I loved his touchdown run down in the red-zone. I thought he got north and just powered his way up into the end-zone. If we can get him to do that all of the time he's got a chance to be special."

On Marshall's similarity to Josh Bush: "It was a great thing with Josh Bush and I think it might be the same with A.J. I think he likes roaming around back there. He's got good ball skills."

On the progression of the offensive line: "[We're] not where we need to be yet. We've got some work left to do, but I like where we are now compared to where we were starting out. I don't think there's any question Garrick Williams can play. I think Antonio Ford is really, really good. I think Colin Summers is really, really good. Those other two positions the right guard and the left tackle we've got some work left."

"I'm feeling pretty good about [Frank] Souza and [Daniel] Blitch. I think those guys can be players, but I think they've still got work to do to keep their jobs. We need to develop a backup at center, and not only do we need backups at right guard and left tackle, but we have to solidify those starters."