Wake Forest

Phew!

Like the cool of the morning porcelin after a night of revelry at Father Fuego's house of chili, this was a relief. The ugly dude in the black robe holding Coach Bowden's scythe has decided to take a brief two week bender in Barbados. We may see him again if the Lizard goes loco on us on my birthday, but for now we celebrate the 80th year of Robert Klecker Bowden's life with a Wake win.

Yes, it has come to this. Streamers blowing and Dom flowing after a win over the preacher devils. But we will take it, and roll into Maryland with a chance to go Bowling for the Nations' best 28th continuous season.

This game started with a superlative game plan for our offense. We took the ball first and after a Bo-Boo drop, we marched right down the field for an easy TD. EJ hit his first 8 passes. Yes, two were dropped, but if he was nervous, it did not show. The running game was clicking, aided by a very effective EJ option game, and this allowed Jimbo to let the short, safe passing game work. Future opponents will no doubt force us to be a little more aggressive by pressing corners, but for a day it was brilliant. EJ runs the ball on the edge a little better than Christian and may be a mite quicker. Obviously, we are not afraid to get him hurt and when he was licked out of bounds in the 4th on a great option gallop, Jimbo tasted his breakfast pastry for the second time. I did the same when the best OL in the last two decades at FSU went out in the second half. Fortunately, I had four double chocolate Dunkin Donuts and it was a wonderful visit down memory lane.

In addition to his opening drop, it is apparent that Bo Reliford has joined Jarmon Fortson in getting kicked out of Club Mensa this year. It seems that each game features at least one timeout caused by one of these two mental midgets being lined up wrong. I remember Peter Warrick in his early seasons making mistakes both mental and physical like Jarmon, but it was apparent that the talent was in there. Like Warrick, Fortson took the ball on a jailbreak screen on a 3rd and nine and exploded across the field breaking tackles and running away from folks for a lightning-fast 30. Next scene he drops a ball near the goal line. Then he absolutely destroys a Wake safety after an interception - Hit of the year for FSU and it came from a wideout - before he runs a wrong route. Follows these performances up with a gorgeous pattern and a game-clinching TD. He must make Dawsey feel like the Tire Repair teacher in a school of dwarfs. You know the natural talent is in there, you just gotta coach em up...or down.

I know that we all get frustrated with our defense. And on maybe their finest day of the season, our lack of effective position coaching was never more evident. We simply do not tackle well. Kevin McNeil and Dekota Watson had drive ending sacks in their hands and decided to fly over the top of the QB rather than actually hit them. Watson added to this idiocy by nabbing a facemask on his flight over the Skinner skyline. Our LB's are incapable of shedding blocks, but that may be because the angles that our lineman take are so awful that opposing lineman are in the second level like a fat man heading back to the pudding buffet at Ponderosa. It was good to see true freshman Brandon Jenkins get some time. I know he only weighs about 5 pounds more than I do, but he made two terrific plays. That is two more than McNeil who played 90% of the snaps. Nick Moody is remarkably better than the guy ahead of him on the depth chart. I heard a 4 year old cute lass wearing an adorable Nole cheerleading outfit leaving the Stadium on Saturday tell her Dad "How come that awful #22 keeps playing for us Daddy?". Well put, young lady.

I am beginning to love Dustin Hopkins. The fact that he is dating a Rockette just so he can get weekday pointers makes him all the more lovable. He put four kickoffs out of reach this week and banging through (one of them literally) both over 40 yd FG's. He has also made three great special teams tackles this season when the crack staff in front of him somehow failed to execute. He and Greg Reid are the freshman of the year thus far with Jacobi McDaniel. Not a coincidence that these are the three 5 star recruits in this class.

So, we come home. Another game with Coach Bowden's future probably on the line. In my opinion, if we win and go Bowling, he will be back in 2010 - regardless of what happens in Gainesville. Jimbo will be able to pick a new defensive staff to replace the current crew, and we should have enough time to salvage an important recruiting class. I just hope that if all this comes to fruition, the old man agrees to publicly announce what we all know - it is his last season on the sideline. He deserves a goodwill tour around the country and a season without coaching questions will be very much welcomed...

Go Noles!