Wake Forest Spring Football Observations: 3/24

It was a brisk morning in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, but the Deacs were still out for another spring practice in full pads. I was able to catch about a half hour of practice before heading to work. Below are some of my observations. If you have additional questions, please feel free to leave one in the comments section. I hope to get out there again on Thursday morning.

-John Wolford received the majority of the quarterback reps. At this point, I think he's a sizable favorite to win the starting role. He seemed to have more velocity on the ball than last year, and completed several nice throws, including a nice play-action pass over the top to Tyree Harris.

-Tyree seems to have returned to the form he had at the end of his true freshman campaign, and I would also keep an eye out for redshirt freshman Cortez Lewis. Clawson has spoken highly of him, and when you watch him practice you can see why.

-Kendall Hinton did not perform poorly, but we must keep in mind that he would still be a high school senior this Spring if he did not enroll early at Wake Forest.

-Isaiah Robinson received 1st team reps at running back, but that's a very fluid position moving forward, and one in which true freshman Rocky Reid may earn the starting role.

- The first string offensive line from what I could tell (from left tackle to right tackle): Phil Haynes, Josh Harris, Ryan Anderson, Dylan Intemann, and Justin Herron.

- The second string offensive line appeared to be (from left tackle to right tackle): Will Smith, Patrick Oesterhage, A'Lique Terry, Ty Hayworth, and Nick Luedeke.

-It's obviously very early in the process, but that would be an offensive line that consisted of three redshirt freshmen starters.

-The line appeared to be much better at run blocking than they were at pass blocking. A few times when they went "live," Wake's starting front seven got to the quarterback very quickly. In general, the line appeared to be more athletic than they were a season ago.

-Redshirt freshman Willie Yarbary made a number of good plays on the defensive line, as did redshirt freshman Rashawn Shaw.

-It was difficult to spot the defensive backs from my vantage point, but it appeared that Thomas Brown, Jalen Latter and Thomas Dillon received a lot of first team reps.

-This team is very young, but the players Clawson was able to secure late in the 2014 recruiting cycle are going to pay nice dividends for the program moving forward. I would expect more than a handful to earn starting roles or at least significant rotational time this season.