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22
Wake Forest
After a summer in the weight room, the Deacons are ready
to
take on a more pressing issue: bulking up in the wins
column
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Kuklick will air it out, as long as the ground game
doesn't leave him high and
dry.
(Phil Sears)
|
Sitting
in
an athletic
department office at Wake Forest
this summer, wide receiver Desmond Clark was trying to
explain the biggest change in the Demon Deacons' football
program when the answer suddenly seemed to erupt from
beneath his feet. At that moment, one floor directly below
Clark, one of his teammates
had just cranked up a Smashing Pumpkins tune on the
weight-room stereo. The beat emanating from below was so
loud that it jangled a set of keys lying on the desk next
to Clark. With pleasant conversation all but impossible,
the senior wideout just
pointed to the floor as if to say, "There's your
answer."
One of the first issues coach
Jim Caldwell
addressed after leaving Joe Paterno's staff at Penn State
in 1992 to take the Wake Forest job was upgrading the
team's weight room. As the facility has grown, so too have
the Demon Deacons. Once the runts of the ACC, they have the
most returning
starters in the conference (16) and a new bravado to go with all
that brawn. "There has been a tremendous change in
this team physically," says Caldwell, 14-41 at Wake.
"And that new stature has permeated everything we
do."
Caldwell's plan has been to redshirt virtually every
freshman (he had done so with 60 of the 65 players on this
spring's roster) and lock them in the weight room for a
year so they can grow in strength and confidence. The
6' 3" Clark, for example, came to Wake a flabby 216
pounds. Four years later he's 248 with 9% body fat and is
37 catches away from becoming the ACC's alltime leading
receiver. Clark's rapport with senior quarterback Brian
Kuklick gives him the freedom to
switch routes on the fly for longer gains, while his power
allows him to exploit the man-to-man coverage most ACC
teams
use.
But for the Deacons to prosper, Clark must also put his
muscles—he
bench-presses 350 pounds—to work as a blocker, cracking back on
linebackers to spring a
runner: Morgan Kane up the middle or Chris McCoy around the corner.
In the past the Deacons' weak
rushing attack (12th- worst in the nation in '97) has
allowed teams to flood the passing zones and shut down
Kuklick. Unable to control the clock
last season, Wake Forest lost four games in
which it led at halftime. "Brian and Desmond are very,
very dangerous and explosive," says Caldwell.
"But for all of that to
work, we have to be strong rushing the
ball."
The Deacons must be equally committed to stopping the rush.
If not, they might as well convert their weight room back
into an indoor tennis court, as it was before. Right now
the room is decorated with a countdown calendar for the
opener against Air
Force and portraits of former Deacons greats like Brian
Piccolo. There are also charts that honor the team's
strongest players, such as
6' 5" junior defensive tackle Fred Robbins, who, at 312
pounds, has surprisingly not yet been nicknamed Baskin by
his teammates; senior linebacker Kelvin Moses, who runs a
4.4 40; and junior linebacker Dustin Lyman, who led the
team with 91 tackles.
Despite a subpar secondary, this unit cut its rushing yards
allowed per game from 254.5 in 1996 to 96.1 last season
(10th in the nation), the biggest such improvement in the
country. The goal for '98? "Zero yards per rush,"
says
Lyman.
"There was a time when we would look across the field
and it seemed like we were a lot smaller than everybody
else," Lyman adds. "Now we can compete physically
with anybody.
I guess we all got sick of hearing those stupid David and
Goliath speeches and
decided to do something about
it." —David Fleming
Fast Facts
1997 record: 5-6 (3-5, tied for 6th in
ACC)
Final ranking: unranked
| 1997 Averages | Offense | Defense |
| Scoring | 22.3 | 26.2 |
| Rushing Yards | 105.7 | 96.1 |
| Passing Yards | 253.3 | 264.3 |
| Total Yards | 359.0 | 360.4 |
|
Pivotal Players
Brian
Kuklick needs 1,971 yards to become Wake's top career
passer....
Desmond
Clark ranked 11th in the country with a school-record 72
receptions last
year.... Senior left tackle
Jeff
Flowe has made 22 straight starts and is one of six Wake linemen
who are 310 pounds or
more....
Dustin
Lyman led the team in solo
tackles (57), sacks (7) and pass breakups
(8),
and tied for tops in tackles for a loss
(9).
Key Games
Schedule strength: 58th of
112
Oct. 24 vs. North Carolina
Wake Forest has dropped eight in a row to its Tobacco
Road rival, including a 30-12 away loss last
year.
Nov. 14 vs. Florida State
The Deacons are 0-5 against the Seminoles in ACC play
(average margin: 48.6 points) and 2-13-1
alltime.
Bottom Line
There's no reason that the Deacons can't go 8-3 and finish
above .500 in the ACC for the first time in a
decade.
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