This week has proved to me all over again that there is no coach in the nation I'd rather have at Wake Forest than Jim Grobe. We can all disagree with individual choices he may make on the field every once in awhile, but hearing him talk about a loss like he has had to do this week gives me nothing but increased confidence in him.

The issue of the field goal game up again yesterday, apparently when talking directly with Dan Collins of the Winston-Salem Jounal, as the quotes from his article are not in the online excerpts from the weekly press conference (or they just didn't publish these quotes on the official website). Grobe says he told the team “If we had a chance to beat another Top-25 team on the road and Sam had a chance to kick a 47-yard field goal, then we’d just put the field-goal team on the bus and go. We wouldn’t have to take the rest of the team. Go put the ball down, let’s kick it and see if we win."

I just can't argue with that. I might think we could have made it shorter, and Grobe probably would rather have it shorter, but he'd also rather take 47 than risk making it longer. He also pointed out that we had already been sacked twice on the drive, so we hadn't proven we could dominate the drive on every single play. It might not be what I'd do, but I can't strongly disagree with that opinion.

The other issue that has received much discussion this week was not running left to center the ball in the middle of the field. Grobe's reasoning here is once again solid, and in this case not even something I had thought of. "You ought to walk out and stand 47 yards or 50 yards away and stand on the hash that far back, and then walk over four or five yards and see if you think that would make that much difference. When you’re that far out, there’s not much angle there."

Fair enough, Grobe. Fair enough.

I know many of you will still disagree with the decision making, but Grobe clearly had his strategy well thought out, and my football knowledge is not great enough to argue with him.

Those quotes came from Collins' article in today's W-S Journal, which can be found here.

It's time to put this dead horse to rest. I'm done talking about UVa, bring on the Tigers.

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Basketball season has (sort of) officially begun, or at least it has around here. The funny thing about it is that I've gotten so used to writing about football that It's a little bit difficult to shift into basketball mode. Hopefully within the next week or so I'll get it down.

That being said, Wake beat Mars Hill 104-70 last night in front of a decent crowd, considering the opponent and the fact that it was a scrimmage. The Screamin' Demons were out in good force, at least for the first half, and I'd say that other than that the stadium was about half full.

Since I was left out in the cold for the Gold and Black game, this was the first time I've gotten to see the freshmen play. James Johnson is going to be fun to watch. 17 points and 12 boards along with several assists and 3 blocks is a great start in my mind. Coupled with continued solid play by L.D. Williams and you've got a pretty powerful duo.

I was less impressed by Teauge and Clark. I don't know if they were nervous playing in the Joel for the first time or what, but they never did much of anything that caught my eye. Apparently Teauge scored 11 points and had 6 assists, but I don't really specifically remember any of them, probably because 7 of his points were from the line. That being said, someone who actually makes most of their freethrows might be a good thing for this team. I think he can be a valuable guard of the bench, but we'll see how he develops over the first few games.

Clark played for 20 minutes and only had 2 points and 2 rebounds, never connecting from beyond the ark. Nothing too impressive for his first outing.

The Deacs came out playing hard at the beginning of the first half. They put up some quick points and played strong defense. I felt like the defense began to break down as the half wore on, allowing them to some easy buckets that shouldn't have been allowed. Dino agrees with me, saying after the game that "I thought we played pretty well the first ten minutes of it. Then I think it was too good too early. I thought we did a good job of sharing the ball. Our kids played unselfishly. Although we forced 28 turnovers I was little disappointed in the last 30 minutes with our defense. It's something we have worked so hard at that during our last practices."

I'm gonna be the first one to say it...Bobby Hoekstra for surprise of the year.


Just kidding (I think)

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I hate it. It hurts. I felt sick the entire way back from Scott Stadium on that bus. We lost by one measly point to a good, but not excellent, UVa team.

I'm not sure what to say. Our defense played well for all but a couple of plays (I'm not really sure what happened on the touchdown to end the 1st half - certainly didn't look good). Our offense played hard, even though they didn't play their best game. We missed 2 field goals and we lost. That's basically what it comes down to.

Did we play too conservatively? Most likely. I saw a lot of the UVa/NC State game, and Rob reiterated it this week; its very clear that UVa's secondary is not very good at all. Why didn't we attack that more? We seemed to run the ball almost all day until we had to throw on third down or until we had to drive quickly in the 4th quarter. I'm not usually one to criticize Lobo and Grobe for play calling, as that's the style of football we play. I'm all for being conservative, I just also think we need to take advantage of what's available to us. The strength of UVa's defense is their run stopping ability. So throw the ball.

A lot is being made of how we handled the last 30 seconds of the game. When we have 1st down on the 31 with 1 timeout and that amount of time, it's definitely a tough call. Is it within Sam's range? Definitely, but should we have worked harder to get more? I don't know. We did it the conservative way we always do, and today it didn't pay off. If we make the field goal, this discussion probably isn't even happening.

One last thing...many were complaining about not centering the ball with the last run. I can't imagine that Grobe didn't know what he was doing. I don't know if I could find data on this anywhere, but my guess is Swank prefers to kick his field goals from the right hash. Otherwise, with a run play called like that, it definitely would be going to the center of the field.

From my viewpoint in the stands, it was difficult to see exactly what went right and wrong, but hopefully I'll be able to see it again (if I can bring myself to watch) and comment further later.

For now, I'm as disappointed as any of you. Didn't need to happen this way, shouldn't have, and it sucks. We'll bounce back, though, and I still believe we can win 9 games. It starts next week with a solid performance down at Clemson. Time to get it done. We can all feel bad today, but it's time to put it all behind us tomorrow. We're still a very good football team.

Don't give up. Go Deacs.

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Unbeknownst to most every Wake fan, apparently part of Skip's legacy are the "Screaming Deacons" who cheer at the basketball games. Thankfully the Associated Press is here to straighten us out on that one!

It'd be nice if they could at least call us by the correct name, right? Is it so hard to properly call us "Screamin' Demons?"

Hopefully, we'll make ourselves known this season, but if we start losing a bunch of games, don't be surprised if the SD's look pretty sparse.

Like one of the recent Lilting Banshees posters reads, "Wake Forest: Leaving games early since 1834"

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I've had the privilege of trading questions with Rob Mahini, writer of The Good Ol' Blog for The Sabre. His answers to my questions follow, and be sure to head over to his excellent blog to read my answers to his questions.

1. Chris Long is pretty much the best player ever, right? We've all heard that, so what I want to know is who's play might surprise us this weekend and why. If you want to brag on Chris a little, I'm okay with that too.

Rob Mahini: Long might be having the single most impressive defensive season I've ever seen at Virginia. And he's certainly one of the best -- if not the best -- player on the defensive side of the ball in college football right now. If he doesn't get invited to New York City in a few months, it'll show how disrespected both the ACC and defensive players are by the national media. (By the way, don't hold your breath on him getting invited to New York).

Setting Long aside, who I think has something to prove this weekend after last week's performance by the defense, I have a feeling that one of Virginia's running backs will have a breakout game. I think the team got away from the running game to its detriment last week, so the coaching staff likely will try and establish the run throughout.

2. How resilient of a team is UVa coming off a loss like last week? I recognize the team is banged up, but after the loss against Wyoming you came back to win 7 in a row...is another win streak in the cards?

RM: Man, I hope so. This is a very resiliant team with a number of leaders that won't allow a "let down" to happen. And even in the State game, the Hoos admirably battled back to take the lead in the fourth quarter. However, the difference between now and Wyoming is the other thing you brought up -- injuries. There's only so much bouncing back a team can do when it's lost the effectiveness of so many weapons. I'm hopeful that home field advantage helps a lot here.

3. What do you think UVa's biggest advantage is against Wake? Biggest disadvantage?

RM: Well, I guess I've already mentioned it -- home field. It's no secret that the Hoos play their best games at Scott (and their worst games on the road). Though Virginia has beaten back the road monkey a bit (with wins at MTSU, Carolina and Maryland), the loss last week was a painful reminder that the road is often unkind to the Hoos. So, having this game at Scott Stadium creates that comfort level -- as well as the crowd-fueled energy boost -- that could be the difference. I do know that without the crowd noise Virginia might have lost the UConn game, after which the Husky players noted that the noise disrupted their communication in the final drive that included a botched snap and a turnover-causing-sack.

Biggest disadvantage is our secondary against Wake's passing game. If NC State's once-benched-quarterback and buried-in-the-roster receiver can torch the defense for -- what was it? -- 1000 yards and ten touchdowns or something, then it's not hard to find the weak link in the chain.

4. What Wake player or players scare you the most?

RM: Whoever is throwing the ball -- be it your starting quarterback, a second-string wideout, a waterboy, Jim Grobe. The Hoos have made an art form out of making quarterbacks look like Heisman quality players. So, I think that Riley Skinner is probably liking his chops watching the game tape of how NC State's Daniel Evans played last week.

5. Time for the fun part...what's the final score going to be? And, out of curiosity, how will UVa finish against Miami and VT?

RM: I reveal my final score prediction on game day -- tradition, I guess (to the extent that a one-year old blog can have tradition). Check the Good Ol' Blog on Saturday morning for that. Generally, I think that Virginia will have a very tough time winning these next three games given the opponents and the injuries. The fact that the Hoos don't get a bye week until before the last game of the season is really starting to take effect. But, whenever I start getting down on this team, they surprise me.

Big thanks again to Rob for sharing his thoughts and his time with us! Don't forget to check out the Good Ol' Blog for more on the Hoos.

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