No Reservations for S. Florida Just Yet
I didn’t really see a bowl team at BB&T Field tonight, which shouldn’t be of any concern to anyone considering that bowl bids aren’t extended after the first game of the season.
I did see a Wake Forest team that will have to make serious improvement to fulfill the prediction of 7-5 that I had in the Journal Thursday morning. Coach Jim Grobe knew as much after the games and so did the players. Some of the same problems from last season appear to have carried over. The offensive line didn’t protect as well as it should and twice allowed running backs to get stuffed on third-and-one. The secondary got burned a couple of times, and that’s not even counting the trick play Presbyterian ran where the quarterback bounced a lateral to a wide receiver, who, in turn, threw deep downfield to an open receiver for a touchdown. And Jimmy Newman, who should be settling in by now as the kicker, missed a 43-yard attempt that a solid college kicker is going to make around 75 or 80 percent of the time.
I also saw something I didn’t expect to see, a team that is dedicated to using more than one quarterback in every game. I was fascinated by Grobe’s decision to throw freshman Tanner Price into the fire in his first game, and I wrote about it for tomorrow morning’s Journal. I also plan to write some more about it for Saturday morning. I talked with Grobe and both Ted Stachitas and Price, but some of the best analysis I got came from a chat with Tom Elrod, the assistant coach who handles the quarterbacks. The short version: Stachitas is expected to start against Duke but Price will definitely play. And if neither do what Grobe wants done, then he said he won’t hesitate to turn to either Brendan Cross and/or Skylar Jones.
I can see my immediate future, and it involves a whole lot of discussion and commentary about the Deacons’ two-quarterback system.
The only real disappointment I had tonight was when the official attendance was announced. I’d been warned that it might be a light crowd, given the Thursday night date leading into Labor Day Weekend. And Presbyterian is obviously not going to be the draw that a Notre Dame, or even a Tulane, would be.
But I was dumbfounded when told, along with everyone else, that the attendance was 28,205.
I’m no babe in the woods about these things. I’ve covered enough minor-league baseball to know how attendances can be inflated, and I don’t mind if a program or organization adds all the season-ticket holders who didn’t make the game to the turnstile count and pump up the numbers. If the crowd had been announced as 22,000, I wouldn’t have batted an eye. If it had been 25,00, I might have guffawed.
But I wouldn’t be writing this.
The count, again, was 28,205.
Problem is, I saw around 18,000, give or take a grand or two. And in talking with my fellow scribes, that’s what they saw, a stadium with a capacity of 31,500 that was maybe a bit more than half full. Again, I try not to be too strident about these kinds of things, but when I feel compelled to put the attendance in my story, and it has been given at 28,205, it makes me look bad. I feel like I’m being played for a stooge.
But as bad as it makes me look, I’d say it makes Wake look worse.