Wake Forest is 3-0, with a home game with Elon this weekend that should end with the Demon Deacons at 4-0.
The Deacs have three straight Atlantic Division games at home coming up: Louisville on Oct. 12, FSU on Oct. 19, NC State on Nov. 2.
They go on the road to Boston College on Sept. 28, have back-to-back road games at Virginia Tech and Clemson on Nov. 9 and Nov. 16, and finish at Syracuse on Nov. 30.
I’m looking at this and wondering aloud: is Wake going to end up second in the Atlantic this year?
The ESPN Football Power Index has Wake Forest finishing out at 6-2 in the ACC.
That same FPI forecasts FSU and NC State at 5-3, Louisville at 2-6 and Boston College and Syracuse, a preseason Top 25 team, each at 1-7 (yikes!).
And everybody there has obvious warts. Florida State is off to a 1-2 start, for instance, though I think the ‘Noles team that I saw in Charlottesville this past weekend isn’t anything near the same team that lost to Boise State and barely beat Louisiana-Monroe.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Willie Taggart get things moving in the right direction very soon there.
NC State, somehow, got beat down by a ba-a-a-a-d West Virginia team this past weekend.
Louisville is in Year 1 of what will be at least a three-year rebuild under Scott Satterfield.
Boston College beat Virginia Tech, which made us think they were going to be pretty good, until we saw Tech have issues with ODU and Furman, and then BC got smacked in the mouth by Kansas (!).
Syracuse limped to an opening win at Liberty, was beaten to an inch of its life by Maryland, which went out and lost to Temple last week, and then ‘Cuse was eaten for lunch by Clemson.
Wake, meanwhile, has quietly put up nice wins over Utah State, Rice and UNC (the latter, a non-conference game).
Quarterback Jamie Newman is throwing for 309 yards a game, completing 69 percent of his passes, with seven TDs and one INT.
The run game is averaging just over 200 yards a game.
The defense is … a little suspect. The Deacons are giving up 416.7 yards per game, so, concern there.
They’re not world-beaters, and they won’t have more than a puncher’s chance against Clemson, but as far as the rest of the Atlantic?
I have them pegged at #2.
Story by Chris Graham
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