There’s no sugarcoating things: Last season was tough for Je’Vionte’ Nash.

The Deacons’ 11-win season came with Nash sidelined for the season by a torn pectoral suffered in the summer. After waiting for four seasons, Nash was a first-time starter on Wake Forest’s offensive line in the COVID-riddled 2020 season.

And then last summer – Nash doesn’t even remember the exact date – he tore his left pectoral.

“I don’t recommend it,” Nash said with a laugh, adding it was the most painful thing he’d ever experienced.

It helped, though, that Nash lived with defensive tackle Miles Fox, who went through a similar situation. Fox tore his Achilles shortly after transferring to Wake Forest and missed the 2019 season, but returned as a starter in the middle of the Deacons’ defensive line for the past two seasons.

“Being with him, he kind of motivated me,” Nash said. “Then once I started getting into the groove of things, they just clicked, and I was like, ‘OK, let’s do it.’

“At that point, it’s like how can you motivate yourself and how can you compete with yourself?”

That drove Nash through the rehab process, and that much is behind him now. Nash has been working as the Deacons’ first-team right tackle in spring practices.

Along with the input from Fox, Nash drew on advice from former Deacons offensive lineman Justin Herron.

In the 2018 season opener, Herron tore his ACL and missed what should have been his senior season. Herron came back in 2019 and worked his way back to being a sixth-round pick of the New England Patriots.

“He was one of the first people I called once I got hurt,” Nash said of Herron. “I took a week to be all sad and I was like, ‘All right, I can’t be sad no more.’ I called him up and he was a great help.”

It’s hard to imagine Nash being in state of mind for a week – the 6-3, 298-pounder is seemingly always smiling and laughing with teammates.

He equated moving on from the injury situation as something of a next-play mentality.

“You’ve gotta be optimistic. Because you know, it’s just like in football, you mess up on one play and it’s like, ‘All right next play,’ because the team needs you,” Nash said. “You focus on that one bad play, it’s going to keep repeating, repeating, you’re going to have a worse practice, worse game.

“You’ve got to come out here and compete, try to be the same person every day.”

Nash is set to become the second seventh-year player in Wake Forest’s history – Fox is the other.

The process of having players return isn’t always a simple one, but coach Dave Clawson was happy to have Nash return.

“The guys know we want them and some of them decide to come back and when they do, most of the guys who have come back and they’re all in, it’s been really good outcomes,” Clawson said.

Now that he’s back in the mix, that’s the path Nash is on now.

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Here were some quick observations about Friday afternoon’s practice:

- On the first play of red zone 7-on-7 action, Sam Hartman threw a touchdown to the short corner of the end zone – Jahmal Banks won a physical one-on-one matchup against Isaiah Wingfield.

At the end of this segment, Wingfield got some revenge with an interception of Hartman.

- Hartman hit Banks for another touchdown in this segment, this time on a late-developing crossing route in the back of the end zone.

So, as you might guess: I’m still holding that Banks stock that I accumulated last August. To me, he’s in line to be the No. 3 outside receiver behind A.T. Perry and Donavon Greene (once he gets healthy).

- Friday was a helmets-only day so it’s hard to evaluate too much about the physicality and line play.

But it was easy enough to tell when defensive line coach Dave Cohen was perturbed by something Kobie Turner did.

On the first play of 11-on-11 red zone action, Cohen screamed at the Richmond transfer and had him come off the field. Before the next play, he called him over behind the line of scrimmage and was explaining something to Turner.

- Hartman threw a touchdown to Horatio Fields early in the 11-on-11 portion, with Fields twisting and turning back toward the QB for the catch. It was an impressive display of athleticism; Fields is an intriguing prospect, in that he flashed a few times last fall camp and if the consistency is there, he can help – but he’s also got some stars in front of him on the depth chart.

- In similar fashion as the play above, Mitch Griffis fired a touchdown pass to Dez Williams on the left side of the end zone. Williams contorted his body a bit for the catch.

- Hartman threw a frozen rope of a touchdown pass to Taylor Morin that had several defenders upset that he was able to squeeze the throw through such a tight window.

- AJ Williams, a bit of a forgotten man in Wake Forest’s secondary, notched an interception against Hartman.

- With Pro Day approaching (Wednesday), several former Deacons are back in town. At Friday’s practice were Jaquarii Roberson and Ja’Sir Taylor.