How will the Deacons’ offense line up for next week’s season opener against VMI? Let’s take a stab
Things were progressing smoothly for a Wake Forest offense that returned most key pieces from a unit that averaged 41 points per game last year.
And then came the news of Aug. 10.
Sam Hartman’s indefinite absence because of a non-football medical issue threw a wrench into the best-laid plans. In case you’ve missed it, here’s last week’s sourced info on the timeline of his return.
Wake Forest still has plenty of reason for optimism that its offense can remain productive.
Wake Forest has been knocked back by the news that its leader of the past two seasons is out indefinitely.
Both can be true.
For however long Hartman is out, the Deacons’ offense will be in the hands of Mitch Griffis. He’ll have every tool – theoretically – at his disposal that Hartman would have had.
Here is Wake Forest’s projected offensive depth chart:
QB
Mitch Griffis | 5-11, 192
Michael Kern | 6-2, 190
Overview: It’s looked this way since the spring – just until mid-August, there was Hartman’s name above these two.
So Wake Forest moves forward with similar circumstances of 2018, but in a different place as a program and better equipped to handle a sudden shift.
Griffis is going to remind you more of John Wolford than he is of Hartman. He’s short but well-built with the arm talent to make any throw in Wake’s offense. The height might result in the occasional batted-down pass, but he’s also got savvy to manipulate the pocket and find throwing lanes.
Offensive coordinator Warren Ruggiero doesn’t need to alter the offense to accommodate Griffis’ skillset; the only real adjustment feels like timing. Hartman stacked years of reps with Wake’s top targets, while Griffis will have had about three weeks to establish chemistry with A.T. Perry, Donavon Greene, Taylor Morin and the Deacons’ other skill players.
It’ll be interesting to see how short or long Griffis’ leash for mistakes is. Kern has been in the program a year longer and has certain advantages, but there’s also a reason their battle didn’t progress through the last two weeks.
RB
Justice Ellison | 5-10, 208
Christian Turner | 5-11, 200
Quinton Cooley | 5-9, 213 OR Demond Claiborne | 5-9, 197
Overview: As I’ve alluded: It feels like there’s as much separation between No. 1 and the rest of Wake’s running backs as there’s been in at least five seasons.
Ellison had a strong spring and didn’t slow down over the summer or in fall camp. He’s looked explosive in the open field, he’s got great vision when running between the tackles, and he does all of the other little things (pass protect, be available as a receiver) to make himself a featured back.
Just how featured depends on a few things from the guys behind him.
Turner has all of the characteristics of a strong running back – it’s just that his ball security makes you doubt whether he’ll be in the No. 2 spot all season.
That means Cooley and Claiborne – two very different runners, weird to note with Ellison and Turner being similar – should have at least an opportunity to carve out larger roles for themselves sooner or later.
Going back to Ellison: He has 656 yards and eight touchdowns in the past two seasons – it’s likely he surpasses both of those numbers this year alone.
Whether he becomes Wake’s first 1,000-yard running back since Cade Carney in 2019 – well we’re back to it being dependent on how the running backs behind him play.
TE
Blake Whiteheart | 6-4, 243
Cameron Hite | 6-3, 243 OR Gavin Ellis | 6-5, 238
Overview: Ah, the forgotten position of past glory in Wake’s offense.
I kid, I kid.
Kind of.
As the quality of slot receivers at Wake Forest has increased in the last several years, it’s resulted in less of a role for tight ends in Ruggiero’s offense. It feels like Wake’s version of Newton’s third law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
The Deacons’ tight end usage was never higher in the last eight seasons than coach Dave Clawson and Ruggiero’s first season – Cam Serigne caught a team-high 54 passes. Over his next three seasons, tight ends combined to catch 19.5%, 16.8% and 17.5% of completions.
Those percentages in Jack Freudenthal’s two seasons as Wake’s starter were 10.9% and 15.2% – i.e. when Greg Dortch caught 89 passes in 2018 and Kendall Hinton caught 73 in 2019, it ebbed away at tight end targets.
Jaquarii Roberson catching 133 passes in the past two seasons was just the latest example of a slot receiver being the preferred middle-of-the-field target in Wake's offense.
All of this to say: Whiteheart is a better receiver than Brandon Chapman, Wake’s starter for the past two seasons. He already had more catches than Chapman (15 to 12) last season, when tight end catches accounted for 9.3% of Wake’s completions – a step back toward focus after that number was 5.7% for 2020.
Whiteheart could open up an avenue for the tight end to be used more in Wake’s offense – though the ceiling has seemingly been lowered from the days of tight ends being key cogs of the passing game.
WR
WR
Donavon Greene | 6-2, 210
Wesley Grimes | 6-2, 185 OR Jackson Hensley | 6-foot, 197
Slot receiver
Receivers overview: When you look at every position group on the roster … this is probably the strongest one from top to bottom.
Perry is coming off of one of the best seasons ever for a Wake Forest receiver. Greene looked primed to have … maybe not *that* type of season, but a good one at least, before tearing his ACL last summer.
Greene looked more comfortable as fall camp went along and really turned on the jets when he was able to ditch the balky brace.
The intrigue at this position is having two legitimate deep threats on the perimeter for maybe the first time since Sage Surratt and Scotty Washington in 2019.
Perry and Greene can swing the pendulum in their favor on 50-50 balls, and both have breakaway speed. Wake Forest had each one of them take on a large role in the past two seasons – now they’ll finally be healthy and at full speed together.
I won’t rehash too much from the slot receivers feature that was written last week. It’s a position that simply produces stars, and the Deacons have two of them who could emerge with big seasons.
Clawson would probably say it, so I guess I’ll write it: If you put Banks, Grimes and Ke’Shawn Williams into a time machine and sent them back to Wake’s roster in 2016, they’d be the top three receivers on the team.
It’s another example of the height this program has reached, able to develop not just the stars who receive acclaim but also grooming the next-in-line players you won’t see in big roles until future seasons.
Left tackle
Je’Vionte’ Nash | 6-3, 298
CJ Elmonus | 6-7, 291
Left guard
Sean Maginn | 6-3, 304
Nick Sharpe | 6-2, 330
Center
Michael Jurgens | 6-4, 296
Spencer Clapp | 6-6, 302
Right guard
Loic Ngassam Nya | 6-3, 307
Matt Gulbin | 6-4, 308
Right tackle
DeVonte Gordon | 6-5, 308
Zach Vaughan | 6-6, 302
Beef Boys overview: I got down here and have some general confusion about starting spots.
We know Gordon and Nash are going to be Wake’s starting tackles; I’m curious about which sides of the line they’re on.
Gordon was at left tackle, Nash at right for the first week, maybe longer, of fall camp. But sometime around the time of the Hartman news breaking, they flipped – you’ll forgive me if I was distracted by other happenings out there, hopefully.
That flip could’ve been planned or it could’ve been a reaction to performance. Offensive line coach Nick Tabacca said early in camp that they wanted Nash to slot in at right tackle because he was more comfortable there … so we’ll see how they line up (Wake’s official depth chart actually will be helpful in this area).
Together, they’re Wake’s starting right tackles of the past two seasons. Nash started in 2020 after bouncing around between guard and tackle in a reserve role for a couple of seasons, but was lost to a season-ending injury last summer. In stepped Gordon, who played over 1,000 snaps last season and graded out at 70.9, per PFF.
There’s another massive question that needs to be resolved on the line: Is Jurgens healthy?
Seeing what has been reported and reading between the lines on what hasn’t, you should have an idea that Jurgens missed a significant chunk of fall camp. The initial word was that he was only going to miss a few days and, well … that simply wasn’t the case. The last word was that Jurgens would be back Tuesday.
Maginn and Clapp had turns filling in for Jurgens, but neither of them has a fondness for playing the position. Jurgens’ return – if it has indeed happened this week – would be great news not just for Wake’s offensive line, but for Griffis as well.
If you’ve followed Wake’s offensive line movement enough over the years, you know that this isn’t like a video game with primary backups automatically stepping into a void if the starter is unavailable.
Tabacca devises contingency plans for all scenarios, and rarely do they involve the backup who’s listed at that position. For example, last season when Jurgens missed the Clemson game, it was Maginn sliding over to center and Luke Petitbon starting at guard.
