Revisiting First Bye Week Buy or Sell: Are New Weapons Emerging for the Deacs?
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Well, the second bye week has come and gone for Wake Forest football, and half the season has been completed. As of right now, the Deacs sit at 4-2. After their first bye week, Wake was 2-1 coming off a Thursday night home loss to NC State. This bye week should definitely leave a better taste in the team's mouths than the first one, but as Coach said, there is still plenty of improvement to be had.
Let's take a look back at some of those buy/sell projections from the first bye week and adjust them, as well as add some new units to the mix.
Receiving Unit
Initial Projection: Buy
Current Projection: Keep Buying!
When talking about this receiver unit during the first bye week, most of the conversation centered on freshman receiver Chris Barnes. He has only continued his terrific play. After a few slow weeks, he caught three touchdown passes against Oregon State and was named ACC Rookie of the Week. Barnes continues to impress and will be a key piece for Wake in the second half of the season.
More weapons in this wide receiver unit are emerging, as Carlos Hernandez and Micah Mays Jr. both had multiple receptions against Virginia Tech and Oregon State. Sawyer Racanelli has also shown some big-play capabilities, and Eni Falayi continues to impress more and more at the tight end position.
Offensive Line
Initial Projection: Sell
Current Projection: Buy
The Deacs' offensive line unit has arguably shown the most growth of any position group throughout the season. From where they were against Kennesaw State to now is a night-and-day improvement. They have had to shuffle guys in and out with injuries affecting Clinton Richard and Fa'alili Fa'amoe. Guys like George Sell and Devin Kylany have stepped up in a major way to give this line room for growth.
The pass protection has been significantly better in recent weeks, and Wake established the line of scrimmage very well against Oregon State, as they ran for just shy of 200 yards.
New Projections:
Buy: Defensive Line
The defensive line may have become the single best unit for this Wake Forest team this season. They have been disruptive for opposing defenses and have shown their ability to prevent big plays. Langston Hardy, the UConn transfer, has been sensational with 4.5 sacks already this season. Nuer Gatkuoth and Dallas Avalava have also shown their ability to make big plays with timely sacks and interceptions.
Mateen Ibirogba might be the biggest surprise on this year's team. He is one of the country's leaders in pressures and is projected in some mock drafts as high as a first round pick. He is certainly a gem for this Dickert defense.
The thing that separates this defensive line from many others is that it not only has some great players, but also great positional depth. I have not even mentioned guys like Zach Lohavichan, Jayden Loving, or Gabe Kirschke, who have all played critical roles on this D-line as well. For Wake to be elite the rest of the way, they will need their defensive line to continue to play at a high level, stopping both the pass and run.
Sell: Punt Unit
If you had to point to one unit to sell, it would be the punt team. So far, when Wake has been in punting situations, they have given their opponent a huge advantage. They are only averaging 40-43 yards per punt, which has to be better.
This is not only a problem with the punter, though; Wake has also given up some big returns off the already short punts and accumulated presnap penalties in the punting game (seen heavily against Virginia Tech). Bad special teams can really kill a team in close games, so this is one area where Wake will have to clean up over the bye week.
Buy: Defensive Secondary
The defensive resurgence of Wake Forest cannot be described only by the defensive line. The secondary is probably the most improved unit on this entire football team from last year to this year.
We already knew what players like Nick Andersen and Davaughn Patterson were going to bring to the table, but we did not expect the pieces around them to develop as well as they have. Karon Prunty and Lardarius Webb Jr. have shown to be transfer portal gems as they already have five passes defended and four passes defended, respectively.
Dickert has commented specifically about how offensive units are avoiding throwing it in the direction of Karon Prunty when he is in coverage because of his lockdown defense. The growth of this secondary has been exciting and should only continue the rest of the way for the Deacs.
The Deacs will be back in action less than a week from now against SMU. Let's hope to see continued growth out of this team that has continued to conquer the challenges in front of them!
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Justin is a student at Wake Forest University. He is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and aspiring finance major interested everything sports. In his freshman year, Justin completed an internship with the Wake Forest Ticketing Department where he gained some valuable insight into the sales and operations aspects of collegiate athletics. Before working with Wake Forest On SI, Justin was a contributing writer for Wake Forest’s student publication The Old Gold and Black. Currently, Justin serves as a student manager on the Wake Forest Men’s Tennis team. In his free time Justin enjoys spending time with his family and friends on the golf course and traveling.