SWC75
Bored Historian
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2011
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- Wake Forest to me was kind of this decade’s Rutgers for Syracuse. The Scarlet Knights, back in the Big East days, were the conference’s most pathetic football program. Then, they suddenly got good when we suddenly got bad and their success seemed to rub our demise in all the more. When we first joined the ACC, the Deacons were the one team we could always count on being better than. We hired Dino Babers to get our program going again after many years of frustration. Then we went down there two years ago to play them in a hurricane. We still expected to get our usual victory over them, hurricane or no hurricane. But they dominated 9-28. Must have bene the hurricane. Except we went 4-8 and they went 7-6 and won a bowl game. Last year we had them down 38-24 at halftime in the Dome. Then they rolled us, 5-40 in the second half. They wound up gaining 743 yards. They also wound up 8-5 and beat Texas A&M in a bowl game, (Koda Davis got a little revenge today). If the guy everybody in the neighborhood can beat up beats you up, it’s hard to deal with that. (I’ve been there.). Today they were primed to ruin our best season in years. We got off to a slow start on offense, fell behind 0-10, slowly took control of the game and built a 28-10 lead. Suddenly we couldn’t stop them. We traded scores. Then we had to punt…and then the defense resurrected itself, the offense built the lead back up to 41-24 and bled the clock. The defense got the stop at the end and we’d beaten Wake after two very frustrating games against them the last two years. It was a decisive win but very far from an easy one and that made it even better than if it had been easy. Good pitchers still when they didn’t have their best stuff- and so do good football teams.
- We also overcame the referees who let at least five clear pass interference or defensive holding plays go – and those are just the ones we saw. No wonder Eric Dungy kept looking for open receivers and could not find one.
- They wouldn’t give us the pass, (“they” being Wake and the refs), so we ran the ball down their throats, with Eric Dungey, who is the size of an old-fashioned fullback being the biggest weapon with 24 carries for 135 and a 26 yard score. He also completed 23 of 35 passes for 157 touch yards. But the biggest thing was that he and we had no turnovers.
- That plus the 3 takeaways the defense got makes up +12 on the season – this after being -12 last year. That’s the biggest difference between 4-8 and 7-2.
- It was an interesting chess match. We had 6 sacks in the first half and none in the second because Wake went to the bubble screen look and the running attack. The blocking schemes obviously changed and wake started going down the field. Then we made some adjustments and began to stop them and take the ball away in the fourth quarter. We did the same thing on offense, reacting to what Dino called a “light box” to run for 264 yards and hit some bubble screens of our own. Only we kept scoring.
- Sterling Hofrichter’s punting varied, kicking Aussie-style and into the wind half the game. But he had 8 touchbacks on 8 kickoffs against the dangerous Dortch.
- Props to Alton Robinson, who in the coach’s words, “played himself into exhaustion”, getting 4 TFLs, 1 sack and many pressures.
- Also to the hobble Chris Fredrick, who made the athletic interception that clinched the game and then took the tour around the stadium, tossing the ball into the stands to SU fans. It was a dumb thing to do but I understand how he felt.
- And kudos to me for coming up with this one in the chat room: “When was the last time we were 7-2?” “Ask Chukwu.”
7-2 with 4 to go.
LET’S GO ORANGE!!!
- We also overcame the referees who let at least five clear pass interference or defensive holding plays go – and those are just the ones we saw. No wonder Eric Dungy kept looking for open receivers and could not find one.
- They wouldn’t give us the pass, (“they” being Wake and the refs), so we ran the ball down their throats, with Eric Dungey, who is the size of an old-fashioned fullback being the biggest weapon with 24 carries for 135 and a 26 yard score. He also completed 23 of 35 passes for 157 touch yards. But the biggest thing was that he and we had no turnovers.
- That plus the 3 takeaways the defense got makes up +12 on the season – this after being -12 last year. That’s the biggest difference between 4-8 and 7-2.
- It was an interesting chess match. We had 6 sacks in the first half and none in the second because Wake went to the bubble screen look and the running attack. The blocking schemes obviously changed and wake started going down the field. Then we made some adjustments and began to stop them and take the ball away in the fourth quarter. We did the same thing on offense, reacting to what Dino called a “light box” to run for 264 yards and hit some bubble screens of our own. Only we kept scoring.
- Sterling Hofrichter’s punting varied, kicking Aussie-style and into the wind half the game. But he had 8 touchbacks on 8 kickoffs against the dangerous Dortch.
- Props to Alton Robinson, who in the coach’s words, “played himself into exhaustion”, getting 4 TFLs, 1 sack and many pressures.
- Also to the hobble Chris Fredrick, who made the athletic interception that clinched the game and then took the tour around the stadium, tossing the ball into the stands to SU fans. It was a dumb thing to do but I understand how he felt.
- And kudos to me for coming up with this one in the chat room: “When was the last time we were 7-2?” “Ask Chukwu.”
7-2 with 4 to go.
LET’S GO ORANGE!!!
