Losses to NFL Draft another sign of big gains at Wake Forest

Having turned water into wine, Jim Grobe rested Sunday.

For most coaches, it would have been a day to shout from the office rooftop. Not for Wake Forest's coach. There was a quiet confidence around the program after the NFL raided it for talent. It was a kick-up-your-feet-and-smile day.

The smallest BCS school in the country quietly produced four draftees over the weekend, including the No. 4 player taken, linebacker Aaron Curry. Add 2008 fourth-round pick Jeremy Thompson (Green Bay) and Grobe's 2004 recruiting class has to be the best in school history.

Jim Grobe's 2004 recruiting class didn't look great at the time, but it produced four draft picks in 2009. (US Presswire)

The best in a lot of schools' history, actually.

Of the 18 players Grobe signed in 2004 coming off a 5-7 season, 13 became starters, five were drafted. Another, kicker Sam Swank, signed a free-agent deal over the weekend. That's one-third of a recruiting class in NFL camps. That from a group that was rated 95th nationally five years ago, the worst among BCS conference schools.

On one hand, what do you expect from recruiting's inexact science? On the other, watch that tap water the next time you dine with Grobe. It might morph into merlot. Things have changed besides Mel Kiper's hair line.

• Tracker: Four Deacons drafted

Raided? The catch from Wake topped that of a former NFL flagship store in Coral Gables. You could have fired a shotgun through the Miami campus and ... not found anyone firing a shotgun through the Miami campus. That's another way of saying the Hurricanes came within one player of going oh-fer in the draft for the first time since 1974.

Nebraska won three national championships in the '90s. It had three players drafted this year.

Meanwhile, Curry became highest drafted Deacon in history and only the school's third first-rounder. Cornerback Alphonso Smith, a second-round pick of Denver on Saturday, finished his career with an ACC-record 21 interceptions and was the only consensus All-American in the ACC last season. Saints fourth-round pick Stanley Arnoux ran the second-fastest time of any inside linebacker at the combine.

That '04 class was the bedrock of the biggest turnaround in the sport since Kansas State, circa 1989-2005, under Bill Snyder. In the past three seasons, Wake has won 27 games, an ACC title and played in an Orange Bowl.

"This is a group when they first came in bonded right away and made a pact they were going to make a difference at Wake Forest," Grobe said. "They didn't like being considered losers. They had a little bit of a chip on their shoulder. They called themselves 'The Fresh Deacs.'"

A difference? Wake Forest had as many draftees over the weekend as Alabama, Clemson, Oklahoma, Texas and Wisconsin. It had more players drafted than Auburn, Florida State, Miami, Michigan, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Tennessee and a certain defending national champion.

Except they'll never be screaming, "You're either a Deacon or Deacon bait," in Winston-Salem. Grobe didn't leap to the keyboard Sunday to fire off letters to recruits updating them to the fact that Wake Forest had become an NFL factory.

The 57-year-old coach knows that while football transmogrification is possible in any given year, the plan can't change. Grobe continues to bring in recruits, redshirt them for a year to allow them to mature academically and physically.

Yes, it's still possible to say that with a straight face. That's exactly what happened in 2004 at Wake. Curry was a 190-pound kid from Fayetteville, N.C., who looked more like a safety. Smith was recruited by other schools as an option quarterback and maybe thought about him as a returner. Smith's build didn't suggest that he would become one of the country's preeminent college shut-down corners.

In case you haven't gotten it yet, Wake Forest can't get in regularly on five-star athletes. The school has an academic reputation to uphold. The redshirting philosophy means that the best players dismiss Wake anyway. They want to get to the NFL as quickly as possible. It's more important that Wake Forest preserve a rep that has been polished over 175 years and has produced 11 Rhodes Scholars.

Since 1986.

"Our boosters get upset with me because they ask me what the recruiting pool is like," Grobe said, "and I say it's more like a puddle."

So, yes, it's true that Demon Deacons are made, not necessarily recruited.

"Alphonso Smith and Aaron Curry didn't meet all the height, weight and speed credentials," Grobe said. "Aaron was absolutely a no-brainer on film. The question was would he develop into a big enough guy to play linebacker in college. Alphonso Smith was just too short."

Curry had one other scholarship offer, from East Carolina. Two years ago, his mother was evicted. He gave serious consideration to coming out after the 2007 season, but his mother convinced him to stay. The NFL helped with only a third-round draft grade. With no home, Curry stayed with his great grandmother over the summer and came back for 2008 rededicated.

"He brought scouts in," Arnoux told the Palm Beach Post of Curry. "When the NFL teams turned on film, all the rest of us guys flashed across the screen making some big plays, too."

Not that there were many early entry success stories for guys like Curry to follow at Wake Forest. Linebacker Jon Abbate left school after his redshirt junior season in 2006. Abbate had suffered personal tragedy (the death of his brother), made a load of tackles and figured things weren't going to change. He wasn't going to get any taller than 5-feet-9 by staying another year.

The inspirational linebacker then went undrafted and knocked around the NFL before signing a CFL contract recently.

"To some extent that probably helped [keep players in school]," Grobe said. "Declaring is one thing. Making it is something else."

In this decade, Wake fans discovered that their team can stand forehead-to-belt buckle with the Goliaths. They've also discovered, as fans will, to demand more. Innovative offensive coordinator Steed Lobotzke has gotten his share of criticism recently from some of the 32,000 coaches in the stands at BB&T Field.

"Lobo must go", some signs read as Wake "stumbled" to an 8-5 record in 2008.

It's a good thing fans care that much. This being the best three-year stretch in program history, the bandwagoneers tend not to remember the previous century. Seven percent of the program's total victories in its 106 years of existence have come since 2006.

Overnight, little ol' Wake is a player each year in the ACC.

"One of the hurdles we got over a few years ago is kids know they can get a degree and play for bowl games, play for championships," Grobe said. "This kind of puts it all together. You can also be very highly sought after by the NFL. That's the last piece of the puzzle."

Just don't come for the NFL. Come to redshirt. Come to learn. Come for draft weekend but, please, don't drink the water. At some point, you might get tipsy.