A look at Wake Forest's quarterback situation.
ESPN is filling its college football offseason content calendar by ranking how strong each ACC team is by positional unit. That's a strong idea, so we will take a look at how they ranked the Wake Forest Demon Deacons in each category. Today, let's discuss the quarterbacks.
ESPN ranked Wake Forest as having the 12th best group of quarterbacks in the ACC, ranking them just above Virginia, and Boston College. The Deacs return John Wolford, who has been the starter for the past two seasons, as well as Kendall Hinton, who made some dynamic plays last year as a true freshman. Wolford completed 142 of 234 (60.7%) passing attempts last season, and accumulated 1,791 yards (7.7 yards/attempt). He tossed 9 touchdowns compared to 11 interceptions. While Hinton, was clearly the bigger playmaker with his feet, his accuracy left a lot to be desired. Hinton completed just 93 of 178 (52.2%) of his attempts, and totaled just 929 yards (5.2 yards/attempt). However, what must be factored into those less than stellar passing numbers, is that Hinton averaged 4.2 yards/carry and had 7 rushing touchdowns. He's such a strong athlete, that Clawson had him line up at tailback some last season, just to get him onto the field.
Should Wake Forest be ranked higher? Potential bias forthcoming, but I would say yes. Clearly both Wolford and Hinton made their share of mistakes last season, but it's still somewhat difficult to judge them given the offensive line's performance, as well as that of the running game. Any quarterback will look better with less pressure. I would argue Wake has a better situation than N.C. State, Virginia Tech, and Duke, which puts Wake right in the middle of the pack in terms of ACC play.
Should Wake be ranked higher? Let us know in the comments section below. We will continue this series by breaking down Wake's rank at each positional unit, and then compiling where ESPN has every team ranked at every position.
