Dave Clawson believes Mitch Griffis is ‘ready to go’ as Wake Forest’s starting quarterback

There will be a new Wake Forest starting quarterback in 2022 after star Sam Hartman departed for Notre Dame, but Mitch Griffis has had to step in for Hartman once before already.

Griffis started the season opener for the Demon Deacons last year as Hartman recovered from a rib removal.

“When you talk about quarterbacks, they have to have more than one attribute,” Wake Forest coach Dave Clawson said. “I think with Mitch there’s a very complete skill set.”

Griffis fared well enough as the Wake Forest starting quarterback in relief of Hartman in the opener. He went 21-of-29 passing for 288 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions, helping lead Wake Forest to a 44-10 win over VMI.

He would play only sparingly the rest of the way, throwing just 12 passes in three games after the opener. But what Clawson saw was enough to make him think Griffis can be the guy this fall.

“He is extremely accurate,” Clawson said. “He has good arm strength. He is athletic. He has really good instincts, great work ethic, super teammate, and he is genuine.”

While it’s unlikely that Griffis matches the kind of statistical production Hartman provided as the Wake Forest starting quarterback — Hartman threw for more than 3,700 yards and 38 touchdowns in each of the last two seasons — he can help stabilize things courtesy of his time in the system.

That’s not a trivial matter, especially in today’s day and age of players transferring and many quarterbacks not having quite as much experience.

The junior from Ashburn, Va., will be ready for his turn as the Wake Forest starting quarterback.

Clawson thinks the entire outlook for Griffis could change this fall, too. He’s going in as the starter, rather than trailing a highly successful incumbent.

“He’s ready to go, and I think what happened last year when he had to start the first game, that’s not anything that anybody wanted, but I think just having that experience of being the starter will help him this year,” Clawson said. “He’s smart. He knows doing it for one game and doing it for 12 consecutive games is a completely different challenge, but I think he’s ready to go. He just has a great work ethic.”

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