The Tailgate: No. 13 Wake Forest

The original saga of realignment in college sports took an unexpected turn in June, 2003 after the Atlantic Coast Conference decided to invite two schools to join its membership. The league had needed three to reach the number required to split into two divisions and host a conference championship, but the expected additions of Miami, Syracuse and Boston College jackknifed when it instead extended offers to the Hurricanes and Virginia Tech without deciding on a third team.

It was a shocking turn of events because the Hokies weren't on the radar compared to the metrics offered by the other three schools. Miami was long expected to leave the Big East, but the greater package pushed Boston College and Syracuse because of the schools' academic profile and media market size. They fit the ACC's driving forces and opened the league to new regions in the Northeast, but Virginia governor Mark Warner drove forces that led to the late emergence and surprising addition of Virginia Tech.

Being left in the cold didn't sit well in Boston. The Eagles enjoyed widespread support during the recruitment process, including from commissioner John Swofford, and it now felt like BC and Syracuse would compete for the last spot. Officials were understandably furious after extensively marketing their programs to the ACC, and the anger hadn't subsided by the time football season started that fall.

That season was notable for a number of reasons, but Wake Forest's appearance on the BC schedule fostered and recalled the bubbling frustration from the fateful June vote despite the school's apparent support for the Eagles. Wake officials had visited Chestnut Hill in the spring for what was viewed as a formal step to the process, and the two felt like logical allies in the growing conference's balance of big city academics and big time athletics.

None of that seemed to matter when Wake Forest arrived at BC for the first game of the 2003 season. What was initially expected to feature two future league opponents instead turned into a passionate matchup, and BC university president Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J. summed up the emotion during a press conference when he said he wanted the Eagles to "soundly" defeat the Deacons in that first game.

"BC could have and probably would have been in the ACC if a series of bizarre events had not turned the ACC expansion process into a soap opera," wrote Boston Globe columnist Mark Blaudschun prior to kickoff. "Representatives from Wake Forest were at BC in the spring, a visit that was supposed to be a rubber-stamp approval before an invitation to join the conference was extended."

The future ultimately played out in BC's favor, but those initial feelings made Wake Forest a layered rival for the Eagles' Atlantic Division tenure. The right kind of rivalry, built on admiration, respect and a desire to decisively beat a friend, emerged on the gridiron, and in 2005, the Eagles won the first game between the schools, 35-30. One year later, a matchup between ranked opponents wedged BC's opportunity at winning the division when the Deacons won, 21-14, in Winston-Salem.

That brand of football exemplified the rest of the decade, and the pairing of Wake Forest and Boston College offered an endless array of images. Matt Ryan's season-opening win 2007 preceded Mark Herzlich's leaping interception for a pick-six in 2008 and a 2009 overtime game. In 2010, BC broke a five-game losing streak by beating Clemson, but the win over Wake Forest one week later catapulted the late-season rush to a bowl game. Four years later, a 24-10 win over Wake Forest at home changed the dynamic of BC's program in the wake of a two-win season.

That indelible link is why the rivalry best exemplified the ACC's expansion era. Two programs with little to no history formed a battle waged over two decades, and as the conference moves into its one-division format next season, the games against Wake Forest will still matter, even if they aren't as regular.

Here's what to watch for when Boston College hosts No. 13 Wake Forest on Saturday:

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Game Storylines (Queen Edition)

So don't become some background noise
A backdrop for the girls and boys
Who just don't know, or just don't care
And just complain when you're not there.
-Radio Gaga

Stepping away from football last week allowed BC a chance to reboot its season after the gauntlet of the first six weeks. Players got healthier, and coaches used the opportunity to analyze and tinker with a scheme based on what did and didn't work in the first half of the year with the personnel that was available after injuries truly depleted the depth chart.

"We're a team in the last few weeks that, I think, is improving," said head coach Jeff Hafley. "We played Louisville and moved the ball better. We ran the ball and threw it over their head a little bit. If you watch the first half against Clemson, we ran the ball and hit some explosives down the field. We moved and just failed to score, which is the name of the game. So therefore, we didn't execute well enough, but regardless of who we put on the field, we have guys who are going to compete and not make excuses and give our best."

Hafley is quick to point out how injuries aren't an excuse for the team's first half struggles on offense, but it's also difficult to dismiss the impact of losing an offensive lineman seemingly every week, particularly in the early season. Having now given the team a week to recalibrate, it stands to reason that the team will find the continuity it needs to boost the offense over its next six games.

"Four of our five starters did not practice [earlier this week] from the beginning of the season," Hafley said. "Guys like Jackson Ness have been able to move around. Dwayne Allick has played pretty much every single game for us. Jack Conley, who we moved in the offseason to play guard, is playing tackle again. Ozzy [Trapilo] has battled through some injuries, and him and Jack are still standing.

"But guys will step up," he added. "We're getting better up front, I really do believe that. You'd like to play the same guys week-to-week, but there's nothing you can do about it. You just have to go and play."

Can we give ourselves one more chance?
Why can't we give love that one more chance?
Why can't we give love, give love, give love, give love, give love
Give love, give love, give love, give love
-Under Pressure (with David Bowie)

The bye week allowed the players and coaches to step aside and focus on other areas of their lives, but nothing about being away from a game plan diminished the buy-in that's still flying high within the locker room. Practice this week had a new energy, and it built off the old electricity brought by the competitive days leading up to a Saturday game.

"I learned that guys are really locked in," Hafley said. "They care. That Louisville game, we played with more energy and more togetherness and spirit and toughness, and we came back [after being down] at the half. Up, down, up, down in the fourth, up. We came out and did the same thing in the Clemson game, and we just kind of got overwhelmed in the second half and made mistakes that let the game get out of hand, [but] I don't think the score is indicative of that game.

"I think anyone who's here will tell you that the way they fought and where they played in the last two games," he said. "These guys are doing everything that they can. They're not making excuses, not pointing fingers, and aren't blaming it on injuries. They're just trying to get better, and they are."

Steve walks warily down the street
With his brim pulled way down low
Ain't no sound but the sound of his feet
Machine guns ready to go
-Another One Bites The Dust

As for the actual football, Wake Forest enters this weekend as the prime example of what programs are trying to build when they hire a new head coach. It was a slow build, but after winning 11 games last year, Dave Clawson's Deacs are in position to make another run at the division championship with a 5-1 record and a No. 13 national ranking.

It's easy to forget how Clawson won two ACC games in his first two years, though the 2015 win over BC is as memorable for its 3-0 finish as any game in college football, and after slowly building the team to a six-win and seven-win program over a three-year span, he finally broke through with an eight-win team that went to the Pinstripe Bowl in 2019. Going 4-5 during the COVID-19 season in 2020 temporarily postponed the progress, but last year's breakout was as much about how teams now take six or seven years to really lay that foundation for sustainable success.

It's eerily reminiscent of what David Cutcliffe accomplished at Duke after it took six years to build a division champion, and it's on the same trajectory as Dave Doeren, who didn't win nine games until his fifth and sixth seasons at NC State.

"I have a ton of respect for Coach Clawson," Hafley said. "The way he does things is the right way. He's very involved with the ACC, and he has so much pride about football and doing things the right way. All of the extra work he puts in, he's one of the best coaches in the country."

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Question Box

Is Sam Hartman the best quarterback in the ACC?

ACC quarterbacks are brutally tough to defend on a weekly basis, but Sam Hartman might outrank every other starting quarterback after opening the season with 1,442 yards and 16 touchdowns. He's second to North Carolina's Drake Maye in most offensive categories despite playing two fewer games, and his performance against Clemson was the kind of breakout moment that could move him to a certain glittery stage with a certain bear-hugging commissioner.

"The fine line is when a guy comes in, he can't go for the turnover," Hafley said. "It's about getting multiple hats, that second and third guy in, to be violent and ripping [at the football]. It's about getting a chance to get the quarterback and going for the football instead of the sack, but hopefully you can disguise and change up enough looks in the back end where he throws a bad ball."

Hartman didn't have to do a whole lot against Army, but he hasn't thrown an interception since Wake beat Liberty in the second game of the year. He boasts an 8:1 touchdown-to-interception ratio and hadn't thrown for less than two scores until the last game two weeks ago. Having a bye week in his pocket, he's also rested and healthy, which is a great set of circumstances after he missed time at the start of the season with an undisclosed medical issue.

How many different ways are there to stop Wake Forest?

Stopping Wake Forest's offense is like any other game plan in football in that no team is going to beat any opponent by straightaway playing X-vs.-Y. A good defense doesn't win a game by stopping a good offense, nor does a good offense automatically win a game by scoring as many points as humanly possible, so the priority has to be on creating explosive plays while playing complementary football.

"Our defensive philosophy has been to eliminate explosives," Hafley said. "We need to play more complementary football, and we can't give them short fields."

Sometimes it's really that simple. If BC can create synergy within its offense, defense, field position, special teams, execution, all of that? It very much can defeat a team with a high-energy offense

How can BC control tempo?

Saying it and doing it is, naturally, a bit more difficult than anyone could imagine, but one of the biggest ways to stop Wake Forest is to keep the offense off the field. One of the biggest ways to do that is to control the clock, and one of the biggest ways to win time of possession is by effectively running the football.

"When you look at the whole body of work throughout the season, grouped by run play, and you just watch that cut up, you can kind of see which ones were efficient and which ones weren't," Hafley said. "But then you have to look at it deeper [and as] if we were efficient at it because we executed it or if the defense bust. When you start looking at the driver, you can see that there are two or three things we're doing schematically that we need to do more."

The running game was thorny at the start of the season for a number of reasons, but having continuity in the offensive line should help open some more holes as different backs find their way into the lineup. Different looks doesn't automatically mean that different running backs or plays have to get incorporated, but it does mean that a smoke and mirrors approach is paramount to opening more opportunities. Maybe that means more misdirections, but formations, play actions, and everything else involves is critical to creating more run game success.

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Meteorology 101

The city of Winston-Salem is one of the more underrated road trips in the ACC. It's on Tobacco Road, but it lacks the national hype of the 10 miles separating Duke and North Carolina. It's a big city of about 250,000 people, but it doesn't carry the same major metropolitan weight of Boston, Miami, Atlanta, or Charlotte. Wake Forest is at the heart of a solid sports scene, but the only professional franchise is the Winston-Salem Dash, which plays as the High-A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox.

Trips to Winston-Salem were a key component of BC's football experience after the Eagles realigned into the ACC, and it's a bit of a bummer that the upcoming single division alignment will remove that travel from every other year. The autumnal climate in North Carolina, especially at this time of year, is gorgeous, and the easy accessibility of driving to Winston-Salem from Raleigh-Durham International Airport or connecting a flight into Greensboro made it one of the easier treks during football season.

Beating Wake Forest isn't as beautiful because Dave Clawson's built a winner in Winston-Salem, but Saturday's going to feature perfect conditions for football. Temperatures in the afternoon should reach 70 before dipping back into the 50s over the course of the night, and the forecast calls for sunshine. There's no shot for rain, and the wind won't be a factor. It'll be gorgeous, which is par for the course for a city that easily ranks as one of the best road trips in all of college football.

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BC-Wake Forest X Factor

Wake's Offensive Line

Sam Hartman and the running backs receive a large chunk of attention for Wake Forest's Run-Pass Option offense, but the key to the engine running is an offensive line that enters Saturday on the efforts of a big, nasty group of returners who are setting a tone for the team's overall depth.

"I think Coach Clawson has done such an awesome job over the years," Hafley said. "Where he's built this culture, he's built his roster to run his scheme. He has three or four redshirt seniors on his offensive line, and they've been doing it for a long time. Compare that with [quarterback] Sam Hartman, but it all starts at that line."

Any offense needs a certain amount of cooperation between the backfield and its offensive line, but the RPO needs even more patience for plays to develop up front. Plays are blocked for the run, but the quarterback has the option to pull the ball back for a passing play. When that happens, the line has to shift immediately into pass protect, which itself is a challenge because different schemes require different shifts and changes. Having experience up front is a big part of why that works, and Wake's aged line is smart enough to know when and how its plays are going to develop."

"I'm just really impressed with what they do offensively," Hafley said. "[Clawson] has built this thing to where they're successful now. It's a veteran group. They have 10 of 11 starters back and they're older, and they're playing well. They could have easily won that Clemson game, and then they're easily a top-10 team."

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Around College Football

Let's talk surprises for a minute or two and start with Tennessee, where saying Knoxville hasn't woken from its dream implies it even went to sleep in the first place. The Vols are officially at the center of the college football universe, and their installation as the No. 3 team in this week's poll puts them in a class they haven't occupied since Peyton Manning and Tee Martin wore those gorgeous orange uniforms.

They are not, in my opinion, the biggest shock of the college football world, and here's why: absolutely nobody is talking about what's happening this weekend in the ACC, where No. 5 Clemson hosts No. 14 Syracuse in a matchup of unbeaten teams in the Atlantic Division.

Yup. That's right. Syracuse - the team that won six games over the past two years combined - is 6-0 and off to its best start since 1987, and while it feels like a mirage, this weekend is the biggest game for the Orange since their 6-0 team beat 7-0 Penn State back in 1957.

It's a huge "prove-it" game in that regard because the schedule really broke properly over the last month, but it's still incredibly difficult to string six straight wins together in modern football . The win over NC State last week came after the Wolfpack announced Devin Leary would miss the rest of the season, but the wins over Louisville, Purdue, and Virginia aren't anything worth ignoring. Don't forget how Syracuse beat Clemson in the Dome a few years back, either.

Elsewhere in college football, No. 10 Oregon hosts No. 9 UCLA at 3:30 p.m. in a game with huge implications in the Pac-12, while No. 20 Texas heads to No. 11 Oklahoma State for a similar game in the Big 12. No. 7 Ole Miss, a team nobody's really talking about, is at LSU and precedes No. 24 Mississippi State's trip to now-No. 6 Alabama

Later on, No. 8 TCU hosts a Kansas State team ranked 17th in the nation, and I'm very much looking at the Wildcats as a team that could potentially crash the party for a league defined by the rodeo circuit of stadiums in Texas and Oklahoma, and later on, Cal hosts Washington at 10:30 p.m.

Locally, there isn't a whole lot worth discussing, though undefeated, top-10 Holy Cross is at Lafayette.

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Dan's Non-Sports Observation of the Week

I'm an admitted audio-video geek, but I ran into a brick wall last month when I attempted to convince my wife to let me install speakers and a sound system in our living room. With the impending birth of Baby No. 2, I saw it as an opportunity to change our viewing habits while simultaneously altering the way we delivered sound in a room adjacent to one of our daughter's bedrooms.

Long story short, I spent about three hours drawing up plans for where I would place speakers and how I would fade and change the audio for the speakers closest to the wall. I intended to blend a surround sound setup so watching football and sports would feel like a sports bar, but I also wanted to explain that we could make it softer without basically muting the TV as we got closer to bedtime. I also threw in headphone options to explain how we could listen to games and shows together without disturbing our little ones.

I repeat: this entire process took me three hours of sketch drawings, arrows, and explanations. It took her four seconds to say, "Absolutely not."

Maybe next year.

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Pregame Quote and Prediction

It ain't over yet McGavin. The way I see it, we've only just begun. -Happy Gilmore

The first half of the 2022 college football season only served to reinforce my personal rule that record predictions are completely useless. It's impossible to see anything in November before playing a game in October, and it's equally difficult to predict results based on any previous or future game. Every week, in my mind, is a one-game season, and while stats and performances offer graphable trends, they operate dually against the notion that every game plan - and execution thereof - is unique.

It's important to recognize that factor when a team is struggling, but it's even more critical to apply the thought when a team is winning. At a surface level or on paper (or any other cliche we want to use), Wake Forest is a cut above Boston College on the football field. Sam Hartman is the best quarterback in the ACC, and defending the Run-Pass Option scheme is as unique as stopping a service academy's triple option, only if it were ranked in the top-15 and headed for a possible New Year's Six Bowl. I'm sure the analysts who installed the Demon Deacons as prohibitive favorites believe that, as well.

None of that takes into account the actual football between the lines, and anyone who grew up watching football at any level knows what that means because there are constant examples through the years of teams winning and losing games against superior and inferior opponents. There is no better or worse team when the ball is kicked off, not until they execute or surrender the plays.

Boston College and No. 13 Wake Forest kick off on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. from BB&T Stadium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The game can be seen on national television via the ACC Network with streaming available through ESPN's online platform. Radio broadcast is also available through the Boston College Sports Network from Learfield, which is on local radio in Boston via WEEI 93.7 FM with satellite options on SiriusXM channel 134 and app channel 956.

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Players Mentioned

Dwayne Allick

Jack Conley

Jackson Ness