Wake Forest...good offense, but their D is a dumpster fire

Oct 2, 2018, 12:22 PM

Did some stat digging, as I like to do...and Wake Forest is interesting.

S&P+ (which gets increasingly more accurate as the season wears on, and we're getting to that point) is, uhm, not remotely high on the Deacs. They're ranked 73rd in the country by the Maff Super Geeks...err, sorry, Football Outsiders, who have always had one of the better triple-secret algorithms on the planet. (By way of comparison, the Brainiacs have us 2nd overall, just behind Bama. Bless you, Nerds! Bless you all!)

The Deacs can score points and move the ball, though. Their offense is actually Top-25, ranked 23rd overall at 487.7ypg. Clemson - again, which contrasts with the hand-wringing we're hearing - ranks seven spots higher, 16th overall, averaging 497.6ypg. The Deacs also score 38.2 points per game...which is actually two-tenths of a point better than Clemson (38.0ppg) who has shown a bad habit of moving the ball early without cashing in like we probably should be doing. We need to clean that up.

The big problem - and difference - is defense. Clemson is fourth overall in total D, allowing just 263.8ypg despite already facing three Top-50 offenses in Georgia Tech (41st), Syracuse (26th), and Texas A&M (13th.) Wake has faced just one decent offense thus far (Notre Dame, 47th overall at 442.4ypg) but still has somehow allowed a whopping 461.2 yards per game against...good for 111th overall out of 129 FCS squads.

Ouch.

The Deacs also allow 31.6 points per game, good for 95th overall. That ain't good either.

Even worse: every game they've played thus far except the opener at Tulane was at home.

Who to watch out for? It's pretty easy: WR Greg Dortch. He's already gotten 45 grabs for 555 yards and 5 TD's...which laps the next guy (Sage Surratt) who has just 19 catches for 280 and 1 TD. Dortch is also an electric return man who can score from anywhere on the field at any point. Give him a step and he's gone.

Freshman QB Sam Hartman has taken most every snap this year, completing 95-164 for 1185, 10 TD's, and 5 INT's...surprisingly, the guy who had some success against us last year, Kendall Hinton (who is very mobile) appears to have fallen to third on the Deacs depth chart. Hinton is went 14-30 for 203 and ran for another 92 on 24 scampers last year and drove us crazy with his ability to escape pressure...pocket QB's tend to die ugly against Clemson, so I still wonder if we'll see Hinton again. Hartmann can scamper a bit (he's got 208 yards on 59 carries) but he doesn't have the kind of wheels Hinton did.

Clemson needs to sit on Dortch, regardless. If Wake is going to have a prayer, Dortch is going to have to have some big plays and they're going to feed him.

We don't need to be fancy to move the ball and score points. We just need to be efficient and not totally blow it. Personally I'd totally let Etienne, Choice, and Feaster lead the way again, and keep things sweet and simple for Trevor Lawrence (or Chase Brice), and let 'em do their throwing against plus situations off play-action as much as possible, gain some confidence, and put the ball in our playmakers' hands as much as possible. I'm quite certain Elliott will likely see it the same way.

The goal, obviously, is that Lawrence comes out of this next game not just upright and vertical, but with a healthy dose of confidence and a sense of command of the offense before the Wolfpack roll into Death Valley after the bye. And this looks, on the face of it, for a good game for that. So we'll see....

flag link

military_tech

thumb_down

thumb_up

Wake Forest...good offense, but their D is a dumpster fire

Wake's D is terrible against the vertical passing game...

I'm hoping we don't have to punt much Saturday.

Dortch is legit. I do think with the secondary being our weakness,

Re: Dortch is legit. I do think with the secondary being our weakness,

Can't wait to see all the idiot poasters

TL; DR***

I wouldn't go with any of that and

Nice summary - well done

TigerBoard POTD