Firing up a thread for coverage leading up to Thursday night's game, and then for coverage afterward, too.

As something of a programming note for today and the week: Dave Clawson's press conference will be today at 2 p.m. and I'll miss it. I think this is the third straight year I've got to miss the opening presser, but Duke's is at 1 and they have a new coach. I'll still have *something* up later today/tonight on WF. And then I'll have a 5 things to know about N.C. A&T, a comprehensive preview of the game, maybe another story squeezed in (it's a short week, so I might not get to everything). And then I'll be at Thursday night's game for full coverage.

I'm on the record with a My Take, I think this season will be better for WF than a lot of prognosticators think.

Also, as to QB, I posted this on OGB last night and might as well put it here, too:

I think Hank Bachmeier and Michael Kern will get equal opportunities/drives and whoever plays better will be the starter going into the UVA game.

Game plan/offense doesn't change based on which one plays. If it's Bachmeier the ball gets pushed downfield more often but also gets put into harm's way more often; if it's Kern, a little more conservative in terms of what throws are made but also better ball security.

I think Kern will be the starter against A&T for basically those reasons -- Clawson is pretty obsessive with ball security and Kern provides that. It's not like he's Captain Checkdown, he'll take shots; just doesn't try to force balls into tight windows very often.

And honestly? I kind of find myself rooting for Kern. He might be the nicest guy I've ever covered at WF. He clearly loves the school and seems to be respected/liked by his teammates. He was behind Griffis at an inopportune time (Hartman being out to start 2022), which kind of set WF on the path to last year's train wreck. Kern hasn't had a chance to compete for the starting job until his 6th year. He's looked more consistent and made some throws I don't ever remember seeing him make (mostly on the move) in the last 5 years.

I don't think there's a wrong decision to be made.

Click to expand...

In case you've missed any of the main things to know so far, some links to catch you up:

My Take on Wake's season.

3 glass-half-full predictions | 3 glass-half-empty predictions

Final camp report.

Camp report after the second scrimmage.

It's time to pass the time!

We're in the doldrums of 95-degree days and the college sports slowdown. Naturally, that means it's time to crank out some summer football preview content.

Here's the first entry: 5 breakout candidates for Wake Forest.

I'll have more in the coming days and weeks. One programming note I want to get out there now: ACC media days are set for July 22-25 and I will *not* be there. Think it's the first time I'll miss the kickoff event since, well, before I had a fulltime job covering ACC teams, which would've been 2011. But my family scheduled a vacation for that week and honestly, ACC media days have lost a lot of value over the last 5-6 years, so it was an easy decision to pick the beach over 4 days in Charlotte.

Let's dive right into fall camp!

Here's the first practice report of the year.

Something of a programming note/update: WF practices again Tuesday and Wednesday mornings and I'm planning on being out there again, with detailed reports like this one to follow. They're off Thursday and then have four straight practices before the next off day, so these types of stories are going to be coming often over the next few weeks.

Let me know of any questions you have in this thread -- pertaining to what WF looks like out there, who's standing out, etc. I can cover a lot of ground in those practice reports but I know I can't write about EVERYTHING, so drop a line and I'll answer as best I can, as quickly as possible -- or I'll find somebody at the next practice who can answer.

Welcome to the offseason! You're all miserable that Wake's season ended after two losses in the regional -- I get it.

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

There is a silver lining here: Wake Forest has 3 more weeks to evaluate and work the transfer portal than it did last year. So let's track who's going out, who's coming in, who might come in, etc. I'll do my best to keep this top post up to date and will sort departing players into tiers.

Going to be drafted so high, they'll sign no matter what:
1B Nick Kurtz
RHP Chase Burns
INF Seaver King

Didn't have a great season, still will be drafted and almost guaranteed signs:
RHP Michael Massey
LHP Josh Hartle

Curious how draft works out:
OF Jack Winnay (draft-eligible sophomore)
RHP Cole Roland (has been in college for 6 years but only played 3; if the waivers clear, he *could* return)

Out of eligibility:
OF Jake Reinisch
C Tate Ballestero
INF Adam Tellier*
RHP Chase Walter
RHP David Falco Jr.
C Cameron Gill
(note: Mitchell Salvino initially appeared here, but have been told he has another year because he came from D3, and those players were granted a second COVID exemption.)

Transfer portal exits:
RHP Will Andrews
1B Pirmin Brechbuhl
UTIL Jeter Polledo
LHP Levi Strahm
RHP Andrew Koshy
LHP Hudson Lee
RHP Ben Shenosky

Incoming transfers:
RHP Cole Zaffiro (Penn, 1 season eligibility)
RHP Luke Schmolke (GT, 3 seasons eligibility, eligible for 2025 draft, was with WF this season but ineligible)

* Tellier miiiiiight have a case for a medical redshirt. He only played 16 games in 2022 and I'm a little fuzzy on baseball's redshirt rules (some conflicting information on the Google search) but I don't think you can rule him out completely from getting a waiver approved and an extra season. Of course, if he gets drafted and/or signs, or wants to transfer, that becomes a moot point.

We'll round up all of the summer and preseason thoughts on the upcoming basketball season here.

Reminder to start this thread comes from today's announcement of the non-conference schedule -- well, most of it.

Doesn't really fall into the purview of anything specific other than summer content.

The ACC inviting Joe Lunardi to its spring meetings to tell the league's basketball coaches what can be done to get more teams into the NCAA tournament struck me as ... odd. Don't think I'm alone in that assessment, given how outspoken Lunardi has been about the downfall of the league.

So, I came up with some suggestions of other experts in their respective fields.

Let me know who I missed!

Going to try to handle this in the same way as the football thread ...

Starting with: Damari Monsanto's exit after a rollercoaster of 3 years.

Here's the quick story on Wake Forest heading to ECU.

Programming for the week: The earliest I'll head to Greenville will be Saturday. I'm leaking oil after this past week and Greenville is a 5-6-hour roundtrip. Maybe I'll get there for a Saturday night game against ECU, maybe not. I'm going into the week thinking I'll be remote-covering both WF and Duke throughout the weekend, just so that I can have as firm a grasp on one as I do the other.

Pitching for this week: Here's the juice for today's post -- Chase Burns is pitching on Saturday. That's the only definitive thing about Wake's pitching situation right now. It'll either be David Falco Jr. or Josh Hartle on Friday, and whichever one of them it isn't would get the ball on Sunday. But go ahead and lock in Saturday as Chase Burns Day.

The schedule for the ACC tournament has just been released. Wake Forest's games are:

Wednesday - vs. Pitt - 3 p.m.
Friday - vs. UNC - 7 p.m.

Wake Forest has to win both to advance -- people think the format is more complicated than it is, since the top 4 seeds can go 1-1 and advance, non-top-4 seeds have to go 2-0.

I'd almost guarantee that Wake Forest will have David Falco Jr. start the Pitt game, with bullpen to follow. And then in primetime, it'll be Chase Burns against the top seed in the league -- and the only one that put a loss on his record this season. That'll be must-see TV. If WF wins both games, it has Josh Hartle lined up on normal rest for a semifinal game.

Both games will be shown on ACC Network and the time element is subject to change, obviously, as there's one game before the Wed. game and two games before the Thur. game. And, ya know, weather.

It's 12:24 p.m. Tuesday and I have no idea how today's game against Liberty hasn't been cancelled yet ... but as of now, it's still going to be played.

As a programming note, I won't be going out there tonight if there is a game.

But I do have a story today: On Antonio Morales and the defensive improvements he made to get into the lineup.

As an additional programming note, the only game this weekend I'll be able to get to is the series finale at N.C. State. It's my wife's birthday on Thursday, and then I'm going to hit the UNC-Duke game on Friday night as I divvy up responsibilities.

Per his father, Fla. TE Tae'Shaun Gelsey will be in town in mid-June for his official visit, beginning June 14. Florida is the only trip on the books scheduled beforehand

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Going to thread together summer football content here. So, it'll be preview stuff throughout the summer -- some lists, predictions, My Takes, etc.

One programming note to get out of the way now: I'm not going to ACC media days in Charlotte this year. I have a family vacation scheduled and honestly, the event has become such a TV-focused one that I don't feel like I'm missing out on too much. Maybe I'll watch the press conference stuff when WF takes the podium -- but I'm not going to bend over backward to cover it.

One note off the spring game: I missed that Wake Forest announced captains that morning. They are: Taylor Morin, DeVonte Gordon, Luke Petitbon, Jasheen Davis, Kevin Pointer and Nick Andersen. All of them make sense to me. The only real takeaway I have is that it'll be the first year since 2019 that a QB isn't a captain. No surprise there and it's obvious why; just interesting to take stock of.

Recap of last night's 24-7 win over N.C. A&T.

Programming note: I'll be at the Friday night and Sunday games against Clemson with full stories to follow. I'm not going to make the Saturday game because I'm going to the Josh Level Classic, a HS basketball all-star game, in Greensboro. I know I'll have a story off of it about Juke Harris; probably will find some other angles while I'm there.

As a reminder: Weekend rotation is now Chase Burns-David Falco Jr.-Josh Hartle. Michael Massey will be unavailable this weekend.

So, here's the meat of the weekend: Recap of Sunday's doubleheader sweep of Western Carolina.

Something of a programming note/update moving forward: I'd like to get a My Take done tomorrow on where this team stands. Have some ideas percolating and frankly, I'm bored with waiting on basketball news that may or may not happen and an interview with Omaha Biliew that may or may not happen.

And then probably the most important thing I learned this weekend: Michael Massey is seeing a back specialist tomorrow (Monday). There is fear that he has a season-ending injury. Obviously he hasn't been "right" all season, as he was entering as a starter and has thrown over 70 pitches twice in 10 starts. I'm reminded of a quote from Tom Walter after his second or third start of the season that they were just going to be week-to-week with him, that sometimes he was going to be good, other times they'd be lucky to get 3-4 innings from him.

Pending how the appointment goes, the thought is that next weekend against Clemson, it'll be Burns-Falco-Hartle. Here was the full exchange with Walter about Massey today:

"Really happy with Falco, that looks like we’re going to stick with that against Clemson, as well. We’ll start Ben Shenosky on Wednesday."

How negative is the prognosis on Michael Massey?

"We won’t know more until tomorrow, he’s meeting with a specialist tomorrow to find out. There’s certainly a chance it’s a season-ender."

Is it his back?

"It’s his back, yeah. We thought it was his hamstring, but it turns out he’s got a little something going on with his back, so we’ll get him to a specialist."

Programming note of sorts on this week's baseball action:

I'll be headed to Elon for tonight's game; always good to check in with the alma mater, even if I don't recognize much of the campus less than 15 years after graduating.

And then I'll have weekend recap coverage of Wake's series at ND. Planning on getting a short story or two up in between tonight's game and the start of the series in South Bend.

Something of a programming note to get things started ...

Wake's first of 15 spring football practices is tomorrow morning. In the interest of full transparency, I'd lost track of the days and had no idea we had already reached this point until I saw Essex's tweet about covering it.

So, you won't see a practice report here tomorrow. Or for the rest of the week. I'm back on the road for the NCAA tournament (with Duke, if that's not clear). When they figure out cloning or teleportation, I'll be really good at handling this job.

While I'm on the subject ... the spring reports are going to be a bit different this season. I'm aiming toward more feature-type stories, less on the minutiae of which second-year receiver caught three passes during a 2-minute drill. I always say that something like 50% of the stories you write in the spring don't mean anything by the time fall camp starts -- so this is kind of my attempt to prioritize a little better and write more interesting stories.

Thread for this weekend's series against FSU (should've started this before the series opener but ... my bad).

Story off of tonight's game.

Programming note: Was planning on going back Sunday, alas and alack. I have doubleheader spring game duty tomorrow, so I'll have a remote recap of Wake's doubleheader.

I cancelled my season ticket renewal for football today. We have had tickets for over 20 years, but the NIL and Portal finally killed it for me. I will not renew basketball either. I will follow the Deacs, but more likely to go to see my Daughter;s DII alma mater on occasion, when feeling the need for live football or basketball.

Always feels like I'm dialed in to the preseason and early-season baseball coverage ... and it slacks off when basketball season hits tournament time.

So I wanted to thread together some links over the past couple of weeks as I've finished basketball season -- the games, at least, since the portal spins forward -- and dove into baseball (and spring football) season.

Feature on Jack Winnay.

Story on Wake's throttling of Coastal Carolina.

Weekend recap on Wake's sweep at VT.

I won't be in Boston this weekend, so it'll be a weekend recap of Wake's games up there. I'll have it updated every day as quickly as I can -- have a busy weekend, though.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention: The Orioles just got a sweep in Boston.

It looks like each side has moved on and the QB says there's no bad blood or anything

Preview for tomorrow afternoon's game.

Programming: I won't be there and don't have a stringer, so it'll be a remote story on this game.

Preview for tomorrow night's game.

Programming: I'll be tracking the game remotely and have a stringer lined up, Bob Sutton, for coverage from the Joel.

The 2026 class ranking has been expanded from 100 players to a full Rivals250: https://n.rivals.com/prospect_rankings/rivals250/2026

Ten highest debuts: https://n.rivals.com/news/rivals-rankings-week-ten-highest-ranked-debuts-in-the-rivals250

Adam Gorney goes position-by-position: https://n.rivals.com/news/tuesdays-with-gorney-new-2026-rivals250-released

Going to have a running thread for stories and updates this week.

Starting with a preview for tomorrow's game against Notre Dame.

Programming: I'll be there with full coverage.