Final Thoughts: Wake Forest vs. Florida State

I haven't been around a lot last night or today because unfortunately I had to work both days. I did get the chance luckily (unluckily?) to see the entire game yesterday and watch Wake lose 52-0 at the hands of the Seminoles. I have several thoughts on the game and basically where we are as a team, and that's what this recap is for! If you want a brief summary of the game and some kind words from the Seminole faithful then check out the recap that Samurai posted here.

Basically, yesterday went about how I thought it would. I expressed concern about the line being surprisingly high (-28) for the game, but as the week wore on and I watched the first couple of games that FSU played in against Murray and Savannah State it became obvious to me that this FSU team does not only have the talent to compete on a national stage, but also the discipline and experience that they have been lacking the last few years as well.

This became painfully obvious yesterday for Wake fans as time and time again the FSU defenders stayed at home on our reverses, misdirections and zone reads, stuffing them for losses time and time again. On the defensive side of the ball for the Deacs, often times our players were in the right place at the right time but because FSU completed their blocking assignments at a high rate, there was nothing that our defenders could do because the talent level of FSU was just too high.

Click through for some more of my thoughts and analysis of the 52-0 beatdown Wake took yesterday.

It is hard to find positives out of a 52 point loss of any kind, much less one to a conference and divisional opponent, but I saw some bright spots yesterday. First of all we all need to consider that this Florida State team is one of the most talented (if not THE most talented team) that Tallahassee has seen since the turn of the millennium. I know that we have all heard this before and I was one of those skeptical of them coming into the game yesterday as well.

This statement is not completely verified because of the game yesterday, as Wake Forest is still the team that they were on Friday. They will contend for bowl eligibility, which is the goal year in and year out in Winston-Salem. Often times fans want more (including myself), but that is the bottom-line goal every single year.

The Deacs are still in excellent shape to make that bowl, thanks in large part to the coaching staff for holding Nikita Whitlock out yesterday and Steven Chase as well (to the best of my knowledge, he did not play in the game), as well as pulling the starters when it got ugly to avoid the possibility of a big injury to a key player.

Wake is still 2-1 (1-1), and while the chance at an ACC Championship is likely all but gone with FSU needing to lose two conference games and the Deacs winning out, a bowl game is still well within reach with games versus Army, Duke, Maryland, Boston College, Vanderbilt and Virginia on the schedule.

Now for the Wake-FSU game thoughts...

To put it simply, the Deacons were outmatched in every single facet of the game Saturday on the field. Florida State is the bigger, faster, stronger, and more talented team in nearly every single position. The 52-0 result is exactly what I would expect from a talent deficit this wide between two teams.

I'm sure many are thinking that the talent gap has been this wide the past few years, but I promise you that when Florida State is at full strength or near full-strength, as they were yesterday, there is no comparison between Wake Forest and FSU. I hate to say that because I have the utmost respect for all of the football players on this Wake Forest football team, but sometimes you have to face facts, tip your hat to the other team and say job well done.

The discipline and focus displayed by the Seminoles yesterday was a far cry from the mistake prone team that limped into Groves Stadium last season and allowed big play after big play. They stuffed the DeAndre Martin pass, they stuffed the Camp pass, they stuffed the zone reads, they stopped every single thing that Coach Lobotzke threw at them because they were well-coached, stayed at home and did their job.

That is the best way to stop an offense that is as frenzied and hectic as the Wake Forest offense is. I hope the Wake defense learned a good lesson because they will need to do it this week against an Army team that runs the wishbone/flexbone veer option attack led by Trent Streelman.

It is really difficult for me to get extremely worked up about anything that went wrong for the Deacs yesterday because it is hard to imagine Wake getting the score much closer even with a perfectly called game by the coaches. Sure it would have been great to score a touchdown or two, but even at 52-7 or 52-14 it really doesn't matter in the whole scheme of things. A loss is a loss and now the Deacs just have to regroup.

Now, to focus on things that the Deacs can control moving forward I will look at positives and negatives that occurred yesterday, Some of become welcome and unwelcome trendsas we hit the 25% mark of our schedule complete:

Positives

• The play of the defensive line yesterday, even with the absence of all-everything NG Nikita Whitlock, was very solid in my opinion, especially in the pass rushing area. Did they get beat at the attack point by the offensive line a lot? Of course, and nobody would disagree with that, but when you look at each player there, Redding had a very impressive game with two sacks, as did true freshman Tylor Harris, who I think is going to be an absolute monster in his four years at Wake Forest (3 tackles and 1 FR on a very impressive heads-up play) Hasan Hazime also showed that he wasn't just a one weekend wonder on the heels of his defensive lineman of the week award against UNC, accumulating a couple of tackles and a TFL.
  
  
• Brandon Chubb is a special teams superstar and always seems to make a big hit when he makes the tackle. He has a great knack for being at the right place at the right time, and led the Deacs with 7 tackles, including a TFL.
• Bud Noel didn't get a lot of stats in this game, but only because E.J. Manuel hardly ever threw the ball his way. I'm sure he got thrown at a couple of times, but I honestly think it was under 3 the whole game. It seemed like Manuel was more than happy to just avoid him altogether.
• If you go back and rewatch the game, defensively the Deacs were in position a lot of the time, even the two long runs by Chris Thompson.The players were there and in the right position but were either forced out of the play by the blocking of FSU or missed a chance at a tackle (this will be addressed in the negatives). I was impressed with how our pass rush did against Manuel, consistently forcing him to escape the pocket to get his throw off. Two touchdowns were a direct result of the pass rush failing to get to Manuel, leading to the secondary's inability to cover for more than 3-4 seconds. That needs to be worked on obviously.
• Alex Kinal continued to impress despite having what was probably the worst of his three games. He had a 40 YPP average on 13 punts which isn't overly impressive, but still a pretty good game.
• The Deacs managed to lose by 52 points without turning the ball over at all, which leads to a possession chart that looks like the one below. So far, the ability to protect the football by the Deacs has been promising and will reap dividends in close games when the turnover margin is +2 or higher in favor of Wake Forest.