It’s funny how time flies, last time the teams played in 2006 I was in my final semester of college and made the 12+ hour drive to Winston-Salem. I remember SU hung around the entire contest before and bounced back from an early deficit when Perry Patterson hit Rice Moss for the score. However, Wake pulled away for a 20-10 win. I remember an SU fan yelling “nice record Robinson!” after the game and thinking “Man, that guy’s gonna eat those words in a few years!” I didn’t realize he was actually the one closer to reality.
The 2011 Demon Deacons don’t appear, on paper anyway, to be as good as that squad that won the ACC title. Wake is coming off a 3-9 season and has several SU fans chalking this up as a win right away. Even CBS has the Deacs ranked 96th out of 120 FBS teams.
The one thing that does scare me, is the fact that now-sophomore running back Josh Harris shows big time potential. He has good size, and don’t let his 65 yards per game in 2010 fool you. In games against Virginia Tech and Vanderbilt he rushed for 241 yards and 138 yards respectively. And as my friends at Syracusefan.com pointed out, the offensive line was a weakness for Wake last season, that becomes a strength in 2011.
With that said, hard-nosed running teams, or at least teams that employed that strategy on offense had success against the Orange last year. Think Boston College and UConn. So Harris, with a sub-par offensive line averaged nearly 6 yards per carry, and that could present some problems.
I’ll say this in addition to Harris, the Demon Deacons return quarterback Tanner Price and receivers Chris Givens and Devon Brown who combined for over 800 yards receiving in 2010. So if nothing else, they do return plenty of experience.
That returning experience isn’t limited to the skill positions. Only one offensive lineman graduated from last year, three of the returning starters are seniors. So certainly the chance for growth is there in the guys who return.
I’ll say this: beware of the trick play. I’ll be honest, I don’t remember watching much of Wake in 2010, but even just from the box score where you see that outgoing senior receiver Marshall Williams was 2-3 passing for 122 yards means some kind of trickery potential was there and could be again this year. Again, it’s hard to take 2010 things and fully translate them to a season where one snap hasn’t even taken place, but it’s worth taking notice.
In the end, I think SU is in much better shape and on the rise, whereas Wake is on the decline. I think we see a competitive ballgame but in the end the Orange will win. Since it’s the first game of the season, I’ll give a score of 21-10.
