WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Wake Forest hasn’t been able to count on many wins during coach Dave Clawson’s tough first season.
A visit from Army on Saturday might be one of them.
The Demon Deacons (1-2) have won seven straight in the series with the Black Knights (1-1) and have never lost to them in Winston-Salem.
Clawson and new Army coach Jeff Monken were assistants together at Buffalo in 1992.
Clawson says the Paul Johnson disciple uses the same triple-option offense that Navy and Georgia Tech run and “it is an absolute pain in the neck to defend.
“There are so many different ways they probe you and find out how do you handle motion, how do you handle unbalanced,” Clawson said. “They’ll just run it, run it, run it, lull you to sleep and then the play action game is really effective. Again, he knows what he’s doing with that offense.”
That should provide a test of Wake Forest’s best unit — its defense. The Demon Deacons rank in the middle of the Atlantic Coast Conference pack in most key defensive stat categories, and allow 100 yards rushing per game.
Army is 19th nationally on the ground, averaging 269.5 yards, and is coming off a 35-0 loss at Stanford.
“We want to run the football and throwing the ball is not an afterthought, but it’s certainly not at the forefront of our thoughts in terms of going into a game,” Monken said. “It’s not how can we get guys open to throw the football, but how can we run the ball effectively.”
Wake Forest can’t seem to get anything going offensively. With true freshman quarterback John Wolford behind a young offensive line, the Demon Deacons rank last in the ACC in total offense, rushing offense and scoring offense.
“We are not a football team that has a very big margin of error,” Clawson said.
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