Langston Hardy’s value to Wake Forest goes well beyond the sack total that jumps off the page.
He’s coming off a 2025 season in which he led the Demon Deacons with seven sacks and added 13 solo tackles for loss, but the way he talks about his next step sounds a lot less about chasing numbers and a lot more about building something bigger on defense.
At ACC Kickoff, Hardy pointed to the kind of communication that only comes from real continuity.
“We always talk about how connection is our edge,” Hardy said during ACC Kickoff. “Being able to be out there with those guys ... it just really allows us to have that better form of communication out there where I can look to my right and see Dallas [Afalava] or see Zach [Lohavichan] and be like, ‘OK, we’re going to run this stunt,’ just by the way I look at him.”
That kind of shorthand matters because Wake Forest is bringing back almost all of the important pieces from a defensive front that kept getting better as last season went on. Instead of spending the offseason figuring out how to play together, the group has been able to tighten the details that Hardy sees as the difference between a solid defense and a special one.
“I think really at the end of the bowl game we were kind of sitting in the locker room looking at each other and realized, like, how good of a group we’re going to have coming back next year,” Hardy said.
The offseason also gave Hardy a different perspective on his own game. A minor injury kept him out of spring work, which meant he missed valuable reps at a key point in the calendar. But he used that stretch to study the people around him instead of treating it like dead time.
“I was really able to sit back and see how these guys work and see what works best for them, how they like to be led, how they like to be coached,” Hardy said.
That experience fed directly into the part of his game he wants to sharpen this fall.
“I really want to work on my leadership as a player,” he said. “If we’re all looking out for each other ... we’re not trying to make plays only for ourselves, it opens up a lot more opportunities for each other to make plays.”
Hardy’s outlook fits the way he already approaches the game. He doesn’t frame sacks as solo wins.
He talks about trust, about doing the dirty work that frees someone else up, about taking on blockers so a teammate can finish the play. That mindset lines up with what defensive coordinator Scottie Hazelton wants from his scheme, and it’s a big reason Hardy has grown into one of the ACC’s top edge defenders.
Now Wake Forest is counting on that same approach to help turn a promising front into the backbone of one of the conference’s best defenses.