A look at the Wake Forest depth chart and some additional thoughts on snap counts
Wake Forest released its depth chart and game notes yesterday for the Utah State game on Saturday. I would post the depth chart here, but according to my EAGLE EYES there are absolutely no changes based on what we saw last week for the Boston College game.
Since there were no injuries and Wake Forest blew out Boston College 34-10 it is probably a good call to just leave everything as is from a depth chart standpoint.
Here are some updates on snap counts and some positions that have named “starters”, but are actually seeing the backups get similar or even more snaps than his counterpart:
- Despite Tabari Hines being listed as the starter, Greg Dortch is getting the majority of the snaps at the slot receiver, but it should be noted that both are getting plenty of targets, leading the team with 14 (Dortch), and 7 (Hines). Hines played just 5 plays at WR on Saturday while Dortch played 70. They have caught 11 and 6 respectively as well. In fact, these two guys have 3 more targets than the other wide receivers and Cam Serigne combined. This may be something to watch moving forward as teams start to zone in on them.
- Dortch leads the nation in touchdowns amongst freshmen through two games with 3.
- Cam Serigne’s NCAA leading 37 consecutive games with a catch ended against BC, although there is a pretty good chance he would have caught the touchdown had he not been interfered with (which wasn’t called). It also is worth pointing out that Jake Freudenthal is getting more snaps than Devin Pike is at the backup tight end position. That count stands at 70 vs. 29 through two weeks.
- It felt like Chris Calhoun was all over the field on Saturday against Boston College living in the Eagles backfield. He actually played 7 more snaps than starter Wendell Dunn played. Carlos “Boogie” Basham, Jr. has also had quite a start to the year (playing 36 snaps against BC). Not a bad sign at all when your backup defensive ends are able to get time and produce, especially when Duke Ejiofor is one of the guys ahead of them.
- The coaching staff is doing a fantastic job of rotating in and out the defensive line, which should allow for longevity as the year goes along.
- I think at this point Christian Beal is set to redshirt barring no injuries to the running backs ahead of him. The return of Isaiah Robinson has given a buffer for head coach Dave Clawson to preserve the redshirt of Beal. Meanwhile Colburn and Carney are effectively a 1A and 1B based on their snap totals through two games. It will be interesting to see if Arkeem Byrd gets any additional snaps this week, as he was limited to 7 in mop-up duty against BC.
- It looks like Essang Bassey and Amari Henderson took all the snaps at the CB last weekend and true freshman Ja’Sir Taylor is playing in a lot of nickel/dime packages, registering 47 snaps himself. Grad transfer Cedric Jiles made his Wake Forest debut, getting into 6 snaps, all with the special teams.
