July 26, 2010

Photo Gallery: 2010 ACC Football Kickoff Day 2
Audio: Grobe in Radio Room

GREENSBORO, N.C. - Wake Forest was picked to finish fifth in the Atlantic Coast Conference's Atlantic Division in voting conducted by the media in attendance at the ACC Football Kickoff on Monday at the Grandover Resort.

"It is a challenge to our players and it's a little bit of a wake-up call," head coach Jim Grobe said. "We probably got a good wake-up call last year by staying home for the holidays."

The Demon Deacons received 203 points in the voting, which included a record 98 ballots cast.

This marks the lowest Wake Forest has been picked in the preseason since the Deacons were predicted to finish last prior to the start of the 2006 campaign. Wake went on to claim the 2006 ACC Championship--the school's first conference title in 36 years.

"Our players are going to realize we have a lot of work to do," Grobe said. "I'm excited to get started. We have a lot of question marks going into the season but we've got a lot of good players who can give us the answers."

Florida State was predicted to win the Atlantic Division this season, receiving 565 points and 78 first-place votes. Reigning division champion Clemson was picked to finish second with 479 points and 16 first-place votes.

Boston College was third with 389 points and four first-place votes, while NC State was fourth with 283 points. Maryland rounded out the division in sixth with 139 points.

Virginia Tech was predicted to claim the Coastal Division title with 532 points and 62 first-place votes. The Hokies, who won back-to-back ACC titles in 2007 and 2008, were picked to win the league's championship once again this season with 50 votes. FSU received 26 votes to win the ACC Championship, which will be held on Dec. 4 at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte.

Miami was picked to finish second in the Coastal with 444 points and 20 first-place votes, while defending ACC champion Georgia Tech was picked third with 408 points and 11 first-place votes. North Carolina, Duke and Virginia rounded out the Coastal in that order.

Florida State quarterback Christian Ponder was the runaway choice for ACC Preseason Player of the Year. Ponder received 45 votes to easily out-distance Virginia Tech running back Ryan Williams who came in with 16 votes.

Wake Forest returns 48 letterwinners, including 16 starters, off last year's squad that finished 5-7 overall and 3-5 in the ACC. The Deacons open the 2010 season on Thursday, Sept. 2, when they host Presbyterian at BB&T Field at 6:30 p.m.

Atlantic Division (first place votes)
1. Florida State (78), 565
2. Clemson (16), 479
3. Boston College (4), 389
4. NC State, 283
5. Wake Forest, 203
6. Maryland, 139

Coastal Division (first place votes)
1. Virginia Tech (62), 532
2. Miami (20), 444
3. Georgia Tech (11), 408
4. North Carolina (5), 379
5. Duke, 169
6. Virginia, 126

Championship Game Winner: Virginia Tech (50)

ACC Preseason Player of the Year: Christian Ponder, QB, Florida State

Wake Forest Head Coach Jim Grobe ACC Media Day Quotes

On adapting the offensive playbook to match his team's strengths...
"It really made us expand as coaches, because we had been primarily a running football team that ran play action passes. All of a sudden, we got this drop back kid (Riley Skinner) that's really pretty special. We really had to learn as coaches and we developed a pretty good passing game. The benefit to that is that as we go back to being more of a run-oriented offense we still have all of the good throws we used with Riley. We've done a better job of understanding the passing game and I think that's really going to help us when we mesh it with the run game this fall."

On the potential to have three different quarterbacks throw passes this season...
"Durability will be a key because when you go back to running the football you're going to ask your quarterback to run it some. I don't know how much, but probably whoever the guy is, that will depend on how much we run it with the quarterback. He's going to have to be a durable guy. The most durable guy this spring was Skylar Jones. That's why he came out number one. Ted Stachitas had a pulled hamstring in the spring and Brendan Cross missed a few practices with a concussion. I think with what we're going to do with our offense, it wouldn't surprise me if we ended up using more than one guy. As a coach, you'd rather have a guy that plays every game like Skinner did most of the time. It wouldn't surprise me to end up playing two or three guys, especially early in the year. We didn't know Riley was the guy. We thought Ben Mauk was our guy and I think he would have been, but he got hurt. We actually had Riley behind Brett Hodges before Brett got hurt in our last scrimmage. Riley Skinner surprised us and I'm hopeful one of the three quarterbacks we're looking at right now will surprise us in a good way."

On if this season is a rebuilding year for Wake Forest...
"It's really an interesting situation. We don't have many seniors in this class. This is our last year that we recruited off a 4-7 season. The rest of the classes behind them were recruited off of championships and bowl games. Our talent level is better in the younger classes. We may be better if we had one more year to get these young guys ready. I don't know if it's as much rebuilding, because I like the talent level of our young players. It's probably restructuring, more than rebuilding."

On this year's team speed...
"We're much faster than we've ever been. One of the things that hurt us a bit last year on defense is we had some kids that were veteran players and they didn't have real good foot speed. We always seemed to be half a step away from making a big play. This year we'll have younger guys, but much better foot speed overall on the defensive side of the ball. Offensively, our foot speed is much improved. When we first got to Wake Forest, we thought the number one key was finding foot speed. The ACC is a speed league because you're playing Miami, Florida State and all of these fast football teams. You never get away from the fact that you basically win up front. You got to have good people up front on both offense and defense. That was a little bit of our achilles heel last year. I really got a feeling that we'll be better up front this year. It's going to be with younger guys, but players with more talent that are bigger and more physical."