Wake Forest is ready for two years worth of growing pains to start paying off.The Demon Deacons begin Dave Clawsons third season Thursday night when they play host to a Tulane team debuting under new coach Willie Fritz.Wake Forest has finished 3-9 twice as part of Clawsons patient rebuild of the program, and last years Demon Deacons were one of the nations youngest teams.Now theyre a year older, with nine offensive starters returning, and theyre ready for the progress they made to show up in their record.This is the most talented group up front that weve had. This is the most cohesive group up front that weve had since I have been here, offensive lineman Tyler Hayworth said. We are a unit that has to work together and trust each other to be able to succeed. From last year to this year, we have built up that trust and built up these relationships with each other to where we are ready to play and we are prepared mentally and physically.John Wolford will start at quarterback for the Demon Deacons, but Kendall Hinton also will play. Wolford has started 22 of the 23 games hes played at the school, throwing for 1,791 yards last season while completing 61 percent of his passes with 11 interceptions and nine touchdowns. Hinton made two starts as a freshman in 2015 and rushed for seven touchdowns with four TD throws and five interceptions.Fritz is taking over a Tulane team that -- like Wake Forest -- is coming off consecutive 3-9 seasons, the latter of which cost fourth-year coach Curtis Johnson his job. His Georgia Southern teams led the Bowl Subdivision in rushing in both of his seasons there, and he led the Eagles to a Sun Belt title in his first season and a bowl game to end Year 2.The main thing I really want to see is incredible effort, Fritz said. We talk around here about, `The Wave dont beat the Wave. Lets stay away from those pre-snap penalties ... and just play a clean game.---Some things to know about the Tulane-Wake Forest opener:- RUNNING WAVE: The Green Wave figure to cycle in four running backs as part of a run-heavy system, with Dontrell Hilliard, Sherman Badie, Josh Rounds and Lazedrick Thompson getting most of the work. Theyll look to replicate what Fritzs Georgia Southern team did last year, averaging 363 yards per game and nearly 6.5 yards per carry. Tulane ranked 119th last year in the FBS in rushing, averaging just 115.8 yards.- DEMON DEACONS D: Wake Forest returns seven starters from their defense, but must replace three members of their front seven, including mainstay LBs Brandon Chubb and Hunter Williams. DL Duke Ejiofor will be important up front, after he recorded a sack in four of the seven games he played last year and had a team-best 4.5 sacks.- RUNNING WAKE: The Demon Deacons have struggled to get their ground game going under Clawson, mainly because of a young offensive line and injuries that mounted at key positions. Wake Forest was 123rd nationally in rushing last year and 127th in 2014. Theyve got more options this year, with freshman Cade Carney earning the start over redshirt freshman Rocky Reid and sophomore Matt Colburn. Freshman Tyler Bell, who rushed for a team-best 451 yards last year, was the first freshman to lead the team in rushing since 1982 but dealt with injuries during camp.- THE SERIES: Tulane has won both previous meetings between the schools with similar profiles -- small, private, academically elite -- but they havent met since 1995. Charlotte Hornets Pro Shop . It was the kind of score that might make everyone else wonder which course he was playing. Except that Graeme McDowell saw the whole thing. Crouched behind the 10th green at Sheshan International, McDowell looked over at the powerful American and said, "Ive probably seen 18 of the best drives Ive seen all year in the last two days. Robert Parish Jersey .com) - The game was all punts and field goals before Kodi Whitfields catch. https://www.cheaphornets.com/255l-david-wesley-jersey-hornets.html . Nathan MacKinnon, Jamie McGinn and Jan Hejda also scored for the Avalanche, who won despite being outshot 38-23. MacKinnons goal, also on the power play, came with just over a minute remaining. Adam Morrison Jersey . -- The plastic that was taped across the lockers in Oaklands clubhouse came down and the champagne that was on ice went back into the cooler. Robert Franks Jersey . "We have always prided ourselves on the way we play defence. Having two big pieces back is going to be a key for us moving forward for years to come," said Knighthawks head coach Mike Hasen. Moin Akhtar was not purely a comedian and neither was he purely an actor. He was, lets just say, a man with an extraordinary range of gifts suited perfectly to the broadcast medium. He could anchor a show and steal it in a guest cameo; he could lead, he could support; he could make you laugh, cry, or think, and sometimes he made you do all three at once.One of his trademarks in the 1980s was a routine about a Bangladeshi who goes to watch a Test. The humour is spun from the central premise that cricket as sport and spectating experience is entirely alien to him.After the third day, exasperated, the man explains to his friend what he watched. First, he says, two paadris, or priests (the whites, geddit?), came out onto the ground and flipped a coin. They must be about to gamble, he reasoned. Then, one of them goes into a building and walks out with 11 ghoondas, or thugs. In defiance, the other paadri calls out two of his own ghoondas and they are wielding sticks. One of the ghoondas is given a bright, shiny red stone. He spits on it, but then, realising the entire stadium is watching, quickly starts rubbing it clean against his trousers.He then runs in and throws it at one of the men with sticks, who hits it away. These paagal ka bachas, or loons, the watcher says incredulously, run after the stone except the two with the sticks, who run past each other and back.Trust me, its funnier hearing Akhtar tell it, and in the way it plays upon the physical act of cricket as one of rioting or political demonstration, it makes an anthropological observation. Cricket can be visually unfathomable to many not familiar with it, but it is telling that he used a Bangladeshi as the central protagonist - it revealed a widespread assumption in Pakistan that cricket was alien to Bangladesh. That should come as no surprise for it was the residue of an attitude that coursed through the western half of the country when Pakistan and Bangladesh were one. Not a single player born in what was then East Pakistan ever represented Pakistan in Test cricket. The usual excuses were that there was no talent pool and that the region had no real association with the game: an outright falsehood in both cases.The truth is there was plenty bubbling along in the region until 1971, just that nobody in West Pakistan cared to know, or do much, about it. That was standard operating procedure in all spheres of life, economic, cultural or political. There was certainly plenty of fervour for the game, proof of which lies in the hheaving stadiums for Pakistans earliest Tests in Dhaka, for side games in Chittagong and in smaller but well-established leagues.dddddddddddd.A softer manifestation of that attitude - the patronising, the dismissiveness - transmitted itself to the rest of the world and has lingered since Bangladesh became a Test-playing nation. For too long, after every loss (and there were many), Bangladesh have been derided and mocked for not being good enough, for only being there because they were a useful vote at the ICC. Teams have avoided going there and have been equally reluctant to invite them.These are the churlish reactions of a small-minded sport too full of itself and not concerned enough about its growth. There has never been any doubt that cricket is a better place with Bangladesh in it; instead there has only been doubt about international crickets commitment to helping Bangladesh develop.Despite the prevailing apathy, Bangladesh have created moments of magic, and most recently they lit up 2015 when it looked, finally, as if they had arrived. They got to the quarter-finals of the World Cup and then beat Pakistan, India and South Africa in ODI series at home as if they had been doing it all along. They found fast-fast bowlers and a genius slower-fast bowler; their batsmen began to play smart and prospered; crucially, two planks aligned in the shape of a world-class allrounder and a charismatic captain.For this months cover story, Sidharth Monga travelled to Bangladesh and together with Mohammad Isam not only traces this rise but sketches a rare and vital history of Bangladesh as a cricket-playing country. They are cognisant of challenges - of continuing apathy, for instance, as Bangladesh have not played a Test since July 2015, or an ODI since November last. Militant violence threatens to reshape future opportunities too. Nevertheless it is a stirring tale, to be read by anyone who has ever doubted that nations love for the sport or its aptitude for it.There is a lot else to sink your teeth into. Gideon Haigh weighs in with a masterful essay on Victor Trumper and that photograph; Tim Wigmore catches up with Marcus Trescothick, a decade on from the last international he played for England; there is an encounter with one of the oldest grounds in the subcontinent, and a compelling study on whether batsmen are batting the wrong way round. Intrigued? Read on. ' ' '