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Savvy Veterans
WFU has experienced, hungry unit on defense
Journal Photo by Bruce Chapman
Senior linebacker Aaron Curry of Wake Forest has been named to the preseason All-ACC team.
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Published: August 3, 2008
It only took 106 seasons of playing football for Wake Forest to come up with a defense as experienced, deep and talented as the one expected to start in the Deacons' first game at Baylor on Aug. 28.
"I'll be honest with you," Coach Jim Grobe said this week. "I think we have a chance to be a real good defensive football team."
Nine starters return from a unit that led the nation a year ago with eight defensive touchdowns.
Cornerback Alphonso Smith, who returned three of his eight interceptions last year for touchdowns, is a returning first-team All-ACC performer.
Smith and Aaron Curry, a 6-3, 247-pound senior linebacker who made second-team All-ACC last season, were both named to the preseason All-ACC team. Additionally, both are on the preseason watch list for the Bronko Nagurski trophy, signifying the best defensive player in college football.
Five players on the Wake Forest defense -- Smith, Curry, linebacker Stanley Arnoux, defensive end Matt Robinson and safety Kevin Patterson -- have started at least 16 games. Defensive tackle Boo Robinson has started 14, safety Chip Vaughn 13, cornerback Brandon Ghee 11 and linebacker Chantz McClinic 10.
At least six of the starters have real shots at extending their careers past college.
The word from those who have been around the program for many years is that this defense has a chance to be the best in school history.
And Vaughn, for one, doesn't want to hear it.
At least not yet.
"We do have the potential to be good -- which doesn't mean nothing," Vaughn said. "We haven't done it yet.
"We're just trying to get better every day so that at the end of the season when they look back on it they can say, ‘Well that was the best defense Wake Forest has ever had.'
"I don't want to hear it right now. I want to hear it come Jan. 8."
The date, incidentally, is that of the BCS national-championship game scheduled for Miami.
Grobe said he would be more worried about expectations if he had a younger, less-grizzled group. The senior leadership provided by Matt Robinson, Curry, Arnoux, McClinic, Smith, Vauhn and Patterson is a solace.
"I always feel good when we've got more veteran guys back on the defensive side of the ball," Grobe said. "So I feel good about this group.
"I really don't think we've got a lazy group. Sometimes guys that have been around a long time take too much for granted. They kind of assume they're going to be good and they don't do the work necessary to be good.
"But I feel like, just in talking to the guys, that we've got a pretty mature group of guys on defense."
A critic could note that the defense, despite its specialty of converting turnovers in points, still ranked ninth in the ACC in pass defense and seventh in the most important statistic of all, scoring defense. It should also be remembered that Clemson scored 44 points against Wake Forest, Boston College scored 38 and Duke scored 36.
Vaughn, who last season led the Deacons with 105 tackles to go with 4.5 sacks and 14 passes broken up, said that the goal this season is to be more consistently good, week in and week out, series to series, play to play.
"Everybody is not content at all," Vaughn said. "The whole mood of the off-season when we were working out was, `We've got to get better. We've got to get better.'
"Last year was not good enough. There's always room for improvement. There was a missed tackle, or a fumble on the ground that we didn't get, or a third-down conversion that they got.'
"There's a lot we need to work on as a team and the players, to a man, we all know we have our faults."
There is also new direction. Dean Hood, the defensive coordinator the past seven years, left to become head coach at Eastern Kentucky University. He was succeeded by Brad Lambert, the Deacons' linebackers coach the past seven seasons.
Vaughn predicted the impact of the change will be minimal.
"Coach Lambert and Coach Hood were on the same page with a lot of things as far as the game plan goes," Vaughn said. "So I don't think you should see anything different in our defensive schemes and stuff like that.
"As you know, all of our stuff is in-house. It's not like we brought an outside guy in. So we've got all the tools in place.
"We've got the same tool box. And we've got even better tools now."
■ Dan Collins can be reached at 727-7323 or at dcollins@wsjournal.com.
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