Sunk: Wake 17 navy 24

Much of yesterday seemed like a bad joke, kind of like the pun in the title. The first half performance was so bad that I literally laughed out loud a couple of times. A glimmer of hope in the third quarter only made the final 24-17 defeat at the hands of the Naval Academy that much more painful.

The most obvious place to start with this one is Riley Skinner. Obviously he couldn't keep avoiding interceptions all season long, but I can't say I expected him to throw four today. After last week's poor performance at Florida State I thought Skinner would bounce back, but it wasn't to be. I've never seen him throw so many poor passes in a game. His fumble only made matters worse. Skinner is still the quarterback of this team. He had a bad day, which happens to everyone from time to time. There's no chance of him being replaced any time soon, but yesterday he just wasn't good enough. It wasn't fun to see.

Skinner's performance stands out the most, but no one else on the offense made his job any easier. The offensive line had another rough afternoon, and weren't helped by Joe Birdsong getting ejected and Jeff Griffin getting hurt. The running game was once again awful and showed no real signs of improvement. The "Wild Deacon" formation used a couple of times didn't look ready for a real game situation. When you have a quarterback who can't throw accurate passes and a running game that can't move the ball, it's going to be hard to win a game.

The defense actually played pretty well. The first half was a bit of a struggle to handle the option, and the injury to Kaipo helped them out a lot, but they only gave up seven points in the second half and spent a lot of time on the field. All things considered, it was a reasonably good performance.

I would have liked to see the Deacs go for it on one, the other, or both fourth and shorts in the fourth quarter. Wasting a timeout to punt the ball was also poor clock management. I try not to act like I know as much as the coaches, but I have to question some of the actions that were taken both in clock management and play calling. I think it's fair to say that it was as much an off day for them as it was for the players.

I'm sure there's plenty more I can (and probably will eventually) say, but I want to get to the pregame questions.

1. If Wake has a run game, can it please show up?
Nope. Not yet, anyway. 45 rushing yards. That's it. I don't think there's much more to say about it. Terrible.

2. How well will Wake contain the option?
The defense struggled with the option early, but improved with experience. The pass defense may have actually been the most dissapointg part. We all know it's hard to prepare for Navy's offense, but I think the defense can be satisfied with it's performance. It wasn't as perfect as last week, but it was pretty good. Kaipo's injury helped, and there were some pretty glaring mistakes, but that's what an option offense will do to you from time to time.

3. Injury avoidance is key - can the Deacs stay healthy?
I asked this question with the basic assumption that a win was more or less inevitable. At that point, we'd just want to get out healthy. Turns out, the win was definitely "less" inevitable... much less. Jeff Griffin was hurt, but otherwise everyone was fine. Still, the loss looms much larger than health after a game like this.

4. Will the parents pack the stands?
Not a good weather day, but the crowd was pretty good and stuck around despite the conditions and the poor performance on the field. Family weekend has been less than successful recently. Same thing happend two years ago against Clemson...we all know what happened in that one.

5. Will the Wake fans honor this Navy team like they did Army last year?
Yep, all good on this front. Fans and players were all very respectful, and I must say that it's pretty cool to see all the cadets stand at attention for the national anthem. The alma maters after the game were nice as well, even if they weren't much fun. Still, very classy all the way around.

Predictions: I look foolish once again. 31-17? Not exactly. One team scored 17, but it definitely wasn't the right one. Navy took care of business. Rough.

As much as I'd like to forget this game quickly, the bye week isn't going to make it easy. I'm sure we'll spend plenty of time breaking down the game. The good news is, it wasn't an ACC loss. Any hopes of going to a national championship game may have gone down the drain, but the Orange Bowl is just as likely as it was before. With others around the conference dropping games all over the place, I have to think Wake is still the favorite to come out of the Atlantic division. I guess that can be today's silver lining.