State of the DB Union

Wake had one of the best defenses in the country last year, and it is still under-the-radar to some, but as always there are a couple of things that need to be worked on

Going into this season, Wake had to replace 3 DBs that got a lot of run last year, with CB Brad Watson, Safeties Ryan Janvion and Josh Okonye.

The starting safety sports are very much locked down with RS Sophmore Jessie Bates and RS Junior Cameron Glenn.

Afterwards... it gets a bit hazy. Wake also lost Dionte Austin for the entire season and the depth chart seems pretty shaky. For right now, the starting CB spots seem to be there for Essang Bassey and Amari Henderson. However, let us not forget the grad transfer Cedric Jiles has been injured and when healthy might be the best corner on the roster.

True frosh Ja’Sir Taylor has come out the gate firing and will definitely find himself on the 2 deep. While it’s always encouraging to see true freshmen play, it seems this one is not only out of talent but a pure need of bodies there too.

Behind Glenn and Bates, we have a similar story. Backing up Glenn at SS is RS Junior Thomas Dillon. Dillon was injured all of last year and had t be moved over from CB but through out the scrimmages he’s been putting up very good numbers and seems like a very good tackler. Behind Bates we could see either RS Freshman Luke Masterson or True Freshman Tyriq Hardimon. It’ll be interesting to see who comes out for the backup spot.

What does this all mean though?

Woo, the Demon Deacons need to stay healthy. I’m not saying that any other time it’s good to go and get hurt, but these two positions seem pretty thin. It would be a world of trouble to have to burn a shirt of another freshman or two and have them come in and play significant minutes when they aren’t ready for that yet.

The starters, when settled, will be really good but I still want to keep an eye out for the corners as they can go a long way to keeping this team having a top 25 defense or even higher.

What are your thoughts on the secondary or the defense in general?

As always, Go Deacs