North Carolina State University Athletics
Tony Haynes: Deacon Deception
9/1/2003 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 1, 2003
By Tony Haynes
While most folks were enjoying the company of family and friends on the Labor Day holiday, it was Monday as usual at the Murphy Football Center, where NC State coach Chuck Amato and his staff put Saturday's 59-20 victory over Western Carolina to bed and jumped headfirst into starting what will be one of the most testy game weeks they'll face all season. And since classes were not in session, the players had a little extra time to concentrate on the Wolfpack's first conference game of the year. Extra time is exactly what they'll need since the next opponent, Wake Forest, will offer up something a little different.
The Deacons' maddening offense is so unusual and unorthodox that it doesn't even have a name yet. Coach and creator Jim Grobe calls it the Wake Forest offense. Opposing defensive coordinators have another name for it: pain in the.....well, you know.
Utilizing misdirection and deception, the Wake attack is a hybrid born out of more familiar concepts seen in other offenses. It looks kind of like the option, but without the quarterback keepers and backward pitches normally associated with option oriented offenses. The old Wing 'T' comes to mind, but Grobe and his coaches have taken the level of sophistication up several notches. And the timing is so good that it would impress a Rolex watchmaker.
So now we've come to this: The young, inexperienced NC State defensive line that Amato has been so concerned about is now about to be exposed to the most dizzying array of blocking schemes and play fakes than they've ever seen before on a football field.
Some blocks will come high, while others will come low. Some will be from the front, others from the side. Some may even come out of nowhere. Whatever the case, many linemen and linebackers will find themselves flipping head over heels before they even figure out where the ball is.
"They're going to run it and they do it well," Amato said. "They tie you up with low blocking, which you don't see an awful lot. They'll formation you to death. They'll run the same play out of the different sets they're in. It's a pain in the fanny. It's the closest thing to running the option without pitching the ball. They're persistent with it, and by doing that they're going to run time off the clock. That means your defense is on the field less."
And even though it is a running team, Wake doesn't deviate from its attack when it falls behind as evidenced by Saturday's impressive come-from-behind triumph at Boston College. Trailing by deficits of 14-0 and 21-12, the Deacs fought back to post a stunning 32-28 win.
"They just keep coming at you with it," Amato said.
And it works. A year ago, the Deacons led the ACC in total offense (408.1 yards per game) and rushing (241.2). Those numbers helped Wake to a 7-6 record that included an impressive 38-17 victory over Oregon in the Seattle Bowl.
This week, the sometime anonymous and under appreciated members of NC State's offensive scout team will play a vital role as they undertake the near impossible task of simulating the Wake offense. Their portrayal, however, will be limited. Once on the Groves Stadium field on Saturday, the Wolfpack defense will need time to acclimate itself to the overall efficiency of the Deacons attack.
"When they get rolling, the other team gets into a panic thing," Amato said. "You can work on it all week against a scout team, but it's not the same. We won't see the speed and timing of the offense until the first quarter. It takes the defense awhile to get used to it."
In its win over Wake in Raleigh last season, NC State did a terrific job, holding the Deacons to just 301 total yards and 13 points. But that was with a more experienced unit that would go on to lead the ACC in total defense.
With so many youngsters up front this time around, Amato figures he might need to call on a different strategy.
"We're going to put in a defense called the scramble defense," Amato cracked. "You just do whatever you want to. Don't tell anybody what you're going to do, just do it. It could work."
Nothing else has worked for most of Wake's opponents, so why not?
