The Cardinal trip to BB&T Field will mark the first time that the Demon Deacons play host to a member of the PAC-10.
That doesn’t automatically translate into an overwhelming challenge for Wake on the order of facing Southern California. Stanford suffered its seventh straight losing season last year, but improved to 5-7 two years after going 1-10.
The Cardinal opened the season with a 39-13 win over PAC-10 doormat Washington State, a team it defeated 58-0 last year. Stanford features senior running back Toby Gerhart, who set a school single-season rushing record of 1,136 yards last year.
Just like Baylor, which defeated the Deacons 24-21 on Saturday, the Cardinal has 17 starters back from 2008. Just like Baylor, Stanford is middle of the pack in its conference, having tied for sixth last season after close losses to UCLA and Oregon down the stretch.
Wake coach Jim Grobe sounded a warning about what might happen if the Deacs repeat their sloppy performance against Baylor that included four turnovers and just 269 yards of offense and defensive mistakes that included giving up two back-breaking plays.
“If we don’t make some improvement, it’s not going to be pretty,” Grobe said.
The assessments of Grobe and some of his players were the same after the loss: the Deacons can be good if they eliminate the mistakes and they showed plenty of heart, fighting back from a 21-7 deficit to have a shot to win in the closing minutes.
“The good part of today was the fight,” senior defensive tackle Jon Russell said. “We got down 17 and kids were running to ball and wanting to win.
“We’ll take a step back and assess this game and find out what we did wrong. As we fix some mistakes, we have a chance to be good. But this (loss) is disappointing because you want to come out of the gates fast.”
Grobe wondered if he may have contributed to the loss by trying to stick with his running game too long, even after Wake fell behind 10-0 in the first half. He opened up the offense after Baylor started the second half by taking advantage of the second of three interceptions thrown by Riley Skinner to go up 17-7.
Grobe’s intention was to keep the ball as long as possible to offset Baylor’s potential to score quickly behind quarterback Robert Griffin.
Grobe called six pass plays in the first half, while trying to revert to a trademark ground game that featured a number of different of offensive sets and handoffs to wide receivers.
“Our lack of production is something we have to look at as coaches and not blame it all on the players,” Grobe said. “We’ve got to go back and look at what we asked the kids to do. I’m sure there are situations where we should have made different calls.”
gsmith@hpe.com | 888-3519
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