March 6, 2012
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Wake Forest head coach Jim Grobe guided the Demon Deacons through their first spring practice on Tuesday, March 6 at the Doc Martin Football Practice Complex.
The session lasted about two hours into the evening under clear skies and cool, 50-degree weather. With just one more practice remaining on Thursday, March 8 before the team is released for spring break, Grobe was excited to begin the teaching process and see a couple new coaches in action.
"I like the energy, it's fun to have some new ideas," said Grobe, who enters his 12th year at the helm in 2012. "I think they're not only excited to be here at Wake Forest but we're excited to get some new thoughts. We've got some good ideas on offensive line play from coach (Jonathan) Himebauch and I think Derrick Jackson, on the defensive side, is going to give us some good pass rush stuff. I'm excited about some of the things we're going to do there... We'll have some fun these next 15 practices."
Himebauch (offensive line) and Jackson (outside linebackers) got their first chance to work with their full units as the Deacs underwent a series of positional drills and concluded with some full team drills and plays.
"It's all teaching," said Grobe. "What we're trying to do now is get the schemes back. We'll be a little more aggressive offensively with Tanner [Price] coming back. Defensively we'll go a little bit slower, but really we're just trying to get back into teaching kids the offense and the defense.
We'll wait until we come back from spring break to get into special teams, but we just want to take a measured pace. We want to make sure we don't go too fast and teach good fundamentals rather than put in too much scheme."
The Deacs will be off Wednesday before another practice on Thursday, March 8 at 5:00 p.m. Spring break will follow and sessions will resume beginning on Tuesday, March 20.
