Short stature doesn't deter Deacons' Woodlief

The assistant football coaches who recruit for Wake Forest are given one word of warning from their boss.

"My basic advice to coaches is, ‘If you recruit Jim Grobe, you're fired.'" head coach Jim Grobe said this week.

Grobe, by way of background, was a 5-10 linebacker at Virginia in 1973. He weighed only 216 pounds and, in his words, was as slow as pond water.

So the message is clear: If you're going to bring in a linebacker so short he needs a periscope to see over the line of scrimmage, make sure he can really play.

"I've been around a lot of coaches in the past who are always looking for diamonds in the rough," Grobe said. "Maybe if you took 10, one's going to turn out to be a real diamond and the rest are going to be real rough."

Fortunately for Brad Lambert, the Deacons' defensive coordinator and linebackers coach, Jon Abbate could really play.

And so can Matt Woodlief.

Woodlief is a 5-11, 255-pound junior linebacker who reminds people in more ways than one of Abbate, an All-ACC linebacker who left Wake Forest after his junior season of 2006 to take a crack at the NFL. Both are compact, physical players who love to hit. And both chose Wake Forest, in part, because the Deacons agreed to let them play linebacker instead of targeting them for fullback.

"In high school I always wanted to play linebacker, so I turned UNC down, and ECU and Virginia Tech and all those other schools that wanted me (to play fullback)," Abbate said. "I'd rather give a hit than take a hit.

"I was determined to play linebacker, no matter what."

Woodlief made his first start Saturday against Baylor. He played well enough to contribute six tackles -- including a sack -- and force a fumble. But both Woodlief and Lambert said he will play better.

"He played pretty well from a mental and schematic standpoint," Lambert said. "He didn't tackle as well as he would like or I would like.

"That's the one thing that disappointed us."

Woodlief is an especially important player for Wake Forest, one who will need to play well this season if the Deacons are able to overcome the loss of last year's star-studded linebacker corps to graduation. A redshirt junior, he played enough as a freshman and sophomore to give Lambert and Grobe confidence that he'll be able to fill the bill.

Offensive tackle Chris DeGeare has blocked Woodlief enough in practices to be glad he doesn't have to do so in a game.

"He's such a compact linebacker," DeGeare said. "He's got a very low center of gravity. You've got to make sure you've got your pad level down when you hit Matt.

"He brings the wood. I don't know how tall he is, but he's built like a little Mack truck."

Woodlief is known for his heavy hits, and has been since Coach Todd Wimberly first assigned him to middle linebacker as a seventh grader at Mills Creek Middle School in Claremont.

"I made a good hit and he kept me there," Woodlief said of Wimberly. " I hit (the ball carrier) right under the chin and he went straight to the ground.

"I said ‘This is it.'"

By the time that Woodlief had helped spark Bandys High School to the Class AA state-title game as a sophomore and junior, Lambert had seen him play enough to be convinced he was, indeed, a diamond in the rough.

"He's a guy that Brad fell in love with," Grobe recalled. "He didn't think there was any downside to a Matt Woodlief."

Where others saw another short linebacker from a Class AA school, Lambert looked a little closer.

"You know the biggest thing is when you watch them play, what kind of player are they?" Lambert said. "Don't try to get hung up on how tall the guy is.

"Does he have length in his body? That's what we really look for. Matt's got really long arms, so he has the arms of a 6-2 guy. That's what allows him to play.

"He's a really physical guy and he's got strong hands."

Selling Woodlief to Grobe was made easier by the play of Abbate, a 5-11, 245-pound linebacker who led Wake Forest in tackles all three seasons he played for the Deacons. Woodlief saw Abbate as an inspiration, and patterned his game after him. He also got to know Abbate well enough to seek out his advice.

"We sat down and I told him ‘Thank you for the opportunity just to watch you and learn from you.'" Woodlief said. "He said ‘Take what I've shown you and try to do better than me.'"

And what were Abbate's words of wisdom?

"Just don't ever take a play off," Woodlief said. "Always give 150 percent each play."

■ Dan Collins can be reached at 727-7323 or at dcollins@wsjournal.com.