Kendall Hinton Deserves to be Wake Forest’s Starting Quarterback

The Wake Forest quarterback battle has been one that nearly every Wake fan has paid attention to over the past year. Junior John Wolford is the more experienced quarterback, but sophomore Kendall Hinton has the dynamic athleticism. The players have each received a lot of snaps over the past year, but I believe a quarterback has finally won the job. Kendall Hinton deserves to be Wake Forest’s starting quarterback.

Kendall Hinton enrolled at Wake Forest in the winter of 2015, and was able to participate in spring practice and offseason conditioning. Still, that wasn’t enough to catch up with Wolford, who was the starting quarterback during the 2014 season. However, with another offseason under his belt, Hinton closed the gap. So much so that whenhead coach Dave Clawson named John Wolford the starter, he was adamant that Hinton would still play.

Wolford started against Tulane, but Hinton scored the team’s only touchdown. John Wolford also started against Duke, yet it was Hinton who was the one making all of the plays. Wolford finished the game by completing just 3 of 5 passes for 17 yards, and ran it 6 times for 8 yards. Hinton, on the other hand, completed 6 of 11 passes for 133 yards. Sure, he threw an interception, but he also ran the ball 11 times for 63 yards, including a 32 yard carry.

Hinton connected on a number of deep shots, including a 37 yard pass to Cortez Lewis, a 23 yard pass to Cam Serigne, and a 62 yard bomb to Alex Bachman that set up Mike Weaver’s game-sealing field goal.

Hinton, in my opinion, is a better passer of the deep ball, and he has also gotten dramatically better on short-to-intermediate routes. When you combine that with his athleticism, then he clearly needs to be the starting quarterback moving forward.

Defenses are forced to respect Wake’s rushing attack much more with Hinton under center, as almost every hand off has the potential to be a quarterback keeper on the zone read. When the offensive line breaks down in pass protection, Hinton also has the ability to make defenders miss and turn plays that should have been losses into positive plays.

I believe that Hinton will start on Saturday against Delaware. Clawson stuck with him for the entire second half against Duke, and Hinton did not disappoint. I’ve made my case for Hinton. What do you all think?