Deacons camp report, Part 17
From 97 to 39, Royce Francis picks a number with more meaning to him
If you surveyed all 128 players on Wake Forest’s football team, you’d probably get 128 different answers of how each one came to first play — and love — football.
Take Royce Francis’ story, for example. The son of a Vanderbilt football player from the early 1990s, Rico Francis, you might think Royce was indoctrinated into football from an early age.
You’d be wrong, though.
“He didn’t really push me to play football, necessarily, but he was … watching my older brother play. And he’d already been playing for a year,” Royce Francis said. “I was like, OK, I might as well try. Looking back, I really appreciate him not (being) like, ‘play football, play football, play football.’”
That appreciation for his father is why Francis changed his number, going from 97 to 39, entering this season.
“He coached me when I was 9, he was the head coach of our team. And when I was 10, and in middle school, as well,” Royce Francis said. “So he coached me for a long time, and really helped me fall in love with football.”
Before there was football for the 6-3, 260-pound defensive end, he played the traditional youth sports. There was soccer — because who doesn’t play a little amoeba ball as a youngster? — and baseball, which Francis preferred.
That is, until the ball wasn’t on a tee anymore.
“They called me Barry Bonds, actually, because I’m left-handed. And then we got to player-pitch and I wasn’t as good,” Francis said. “And I got hit a couple of times and I was like, ‘Yeah, this isn’t for me.’”
So that’s where football entered the equation — and it was important to Francis that it was his decision.
“I played basketball too, but I feel like football was always the sport that I’ve always been best at, and it’s easy to like something when you’re pretty good at it,” Francis said.
Being good didn’t come immediately, either. Francis remembers participating in the Oklahoma drill in his first season, and coaches’ advice being “you’re either the hammer or the nail.”
And Francis was the nail more times than he was the hammer during the first year.
That second year, though?
“My second year I was like, you know … I’m done, I’m not going to be a nail anymore, I’m going to hit people,” he said. “My dad was telling me, all the coaches were like, ‘Well I don’t know what you told Royce this offseason, but he’s really come out. He’s come out of his shell.’”
Francis mentioned that this change comes amid the possibility that his football career could be winding down — but “hopefully not.” It reflects the uncertainty facing a fourth-year player who’s yet to crack Wake Forest’s starting lineup.
There’s time for Francis to make a larger impact — he’s had 16 tackles in 20 games for the past two seasons — but there’s also acknowledgement that the next two seasons could be his last.
The change comes now and not earlier because No. 39 was Keegan Good’s number for the past four seasons. Good was a safety, and players who double-up on numbers have to be on opposite sides of the ball.
Of course, trades can be worked out. But Francis opted to be patient — and it’s also not like he hated the number he had.
“I don’t know, I had thought about it last year. But I was like, ‘I’ll wait until Keegan leaves, I don’t want to cause any comeuppance,’” Francis said. “And I liked 97 a lot, I still like 97 a lot.”
The duality here really hits home when looking at Francis’ attire after practice today: His shorts had 39 on the bottom, but his undershirt had a 97 on it.
But it’s the number on gameday that matters here, and that’s the one that means the most to Francis.
“If I could tell him one thing, I’d tell him thanks for being so supportive of me the whole way and being a great role model,” Francis said.
Here were my observations during Wake Forest’s 17th fall camp practice:
Was today won by the offense, defense, or neither: Defense.
This one — to put it as delicately as I can — has more to do with the offense than with the defense.
Eh, maybe that’s not that delicate. Oh well.
Sam Hartman was misfiring worse than any other practice during fall camp, at least in my estimation. And backups Michael Kern and Mitch Griffis were sharp in certain areas — Griffis fired some lasers in 7-on-7 work, while Kern led a sharp, end-of-game situation at the end of practice — but also had a few puzzling throws.
JJ Roberts had the only interception of the day, undercutting a Jaquarii Roberson route and picking off Hartman. Chelen Garnes dropped an interception that Kern basically threw to him (under duress).
This isn’t to take anything away from the defense. Roberts’ interception was a nice play, Ja’Sir Taylor had a PBU in the end zone in goal-line work, Jasheen Davis continues to wreak havoc and Nasir Greer blew up a goal-line run.
It just felt like this was more of the offense’s bad day than the defense’s good day.
Catch of the day: Well … so … I mean … there were a few close ones …
I guess I’ll go with Donald Stewart on the sideline during the last part of practice, which was Kern’s end-of-game scenario. Stewart had a few nice catches along the sideline to move the Deacons down the field and stop the clock.
When you’ve got quarterbacks misfiring and overthrowing balls, though, there aren’t a bevy of catchable passes.
Taylor Morin almost had a going-out-of-bounds helmet catch, but was unable to secure it before it squeezed out of his grasp. That would’ve given Jahmal Banks’ catch from last week a run for catch of fall camp if Morin had held on.
Where’s the Beef: Loic Ngassam Nya is still out, so that meant another day of first-team reps for Terrance Davis at right guard.
I’ll note that it’s not like I’m expert at evaluating interior offensive line play — I knew Phil Haynes was good and that’s about the extent of it — but Davis seems to fit in well. Clawson and offensive line coach Nick Tabacca have made it sound like the No. 1 priority with Davis isn’t as much getting him to understand playbook and scheme as much as it’s making sure he’s healthy — and he appears to be.
Elsewhere on the offensive line, DeVonte Gordon was at right tackle and Zach Tom at left for the first full-team situations today, and I’d expect that to be the starting layout for tackles when the season begins.
Spencer Clapp, as Clawson said last week, will play — which will bump Tom to right tackle.
And this is where again, you’re reminded that the Deacons are a 31-point favorite in the opener against Old Dominion (per Circa Sports), and their second game is against FCS-level Norfolk State.
So there’s time to mix and match rotations without fearing dire circumstances.
Who was in the pit: We’re getting to the point in the season where it’s troublesome not only to see players in the pit, but to see players who haven’t even made it to the pit.
In that category: Nick Andersen, Ngassam Nya, Will Smart and Zach Ranson — though Ranson is a new development.
In the pit today were: AJ Williams, Kenneth Dicks III, Malik Mustapha (so, #NotGoodDino for the secondary), Kendron Wayman and Andy Elkins. Tyler Williams and CJ Elmonus looked to be doing some light workouts.
Quote of the day: “I feel free.” — Je’Vionte’ Nash
The context here is that Nash, the Deacons’ right tackle last year who suffered a season-ending arm injury in the summer, was out of the sling that he’s been in throughout fall camp.
I asked Nash if it was his first day out of the sling and he said it’s been a couple of days, and was happy to report the feeling of freedom with something as simple as swinging his arms while he walked.
(when you only talk to one player and you discuss a number change, you’re kind of limited in quotes to throw into a notes section)
Newcomer of the day: Man, and I thought the catch of the day category was hard to fill.
I’ve got a page of practice notes and the only newcomers I’ve got doing anything are Christian Turner and Chelen Garnes.
And Garnes’ play was as much a negative as it was positive, as he dropped an interception that hit him in the chest.
So it’s Turner, who had a couple of decent runs in the first full-team drills of the day.
Biggest surprise: In general, it was surprising to see the offense have such a lackluster performance.
Now, I’m not trying to sound any alarms here. Bad days are going to happen. And it’s not like I’m reviewing tape like the staff — maybe this wasn’t as bad as my notes and memory indicate.
But the overthrows and other inaccurate passes, some struggles running the ball — particularly on the goal line — were disconcerting with the first game 11 days away.
Deacons camp report, Part 17
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I do not want to hear about short and goal running problems. Drives me crazy every year.