We have reached the final position group preview for the 2025 Wake Forest Football season: special teams.
At a glance
- Key Returners: Matthew Dennis, Caleb Carlson, Will Cobb
- Key Additions: Cal Joseph (Fr.), Rohan MacNeill (Fr.), Connor Calvert (Fr.)
- Key Losses: Ivan Mora
Punter
At punter, the Deacs must find someone to replace 6-year veteran Ivan Mora. Mora, who played in 59 games from 2019-2024 for Wake Forest, finished his career 3rd in Wake Forest history in both career punts and career punting yards (behind Alex Kinal and Dom Maggio) and 5th in career punting average. Unfortunately, between redshirt freshman Jack Ploszay, freshman Cal Joseph, and freshman Rohan MacNeill,
the Deacs don’t have a single punter on the roster who has played in a college football game. Ploszay was rated as a 4.5-star recruit and the 26th best punter in the 2024 class by Kohl’s Kicking (specials teams camp that rates kickers because the mainstream recruiting sites don’t). MacNeill has been playing semi-pro football in the Western Australian Football League for Claremont Football Club—Australian rules football is seemingly a wild mix of rugby and soccer, so you know MacNeill is going to be as tough as they come. Cal Joseph is also from Australia, and head coach Jake Dickert recently said he was starting to “get his feet wet” as a punter. To my knowledge, Dickert has not named a starter yet, so it’s still pretty up in the air who will be taking over punter duties against Kennesaw State.
Kicker
Kicker is in the exact opposite position as punter, as the Deacs return both kickers from last season in redshirt senior Matthew Dennis and redshirt junior Caleb Carlson. Carlson was used solely on kickoffs last season and finished the year averaging 63.1 yards per kick with 37 touchbacks. I would imagine he will fill that role again as he has a much bigger leg than Dennis. Dennis, who has been Wake’s placekicker for the past 3 seasons, finished the year 36-36 on PAT’s and 16-20 on field goals. He has been a little shaky, to put it politely, over the last 2 seasons, but Dickert has said that Dennis has been “ultra consistent” so far in fall camp. While it may be a good assumption to pencil Dennis in for another season at PK, Dickert did say after the last scrimmage that Carlson was still in the mix.
Long Snapper
Redshirt senior Will Cobb returns for his 4th consecutive season as Wake’s long snapper. Cobb has played in 37 games over the past 3 seasons, and he has been nearly flawless in that time. Despite only seeing the field a few times a game, the long snapper is crucially important because any mistake on a field goal or punt is probably going to have game changing consequences. I feel confident that Wake will be in good hands again this season given how much experience Cobb has as a Deacon.
Special teams are incredibly important to winning football games and can be the difference between a great season and completely missing a bowl game. Punter is a big question mark at the moment, but as long as the guys on the roster can decently kick far, the Deacs will probably be ok there. Having a kicker that can be trusted to make big kicks in big moments can massively change a coach’s strategy in the 4th quarter, so whether or not the Deacs can rely on Dennis this season will likely be felt on both sides of the ball.
