Haynes: Pack Needs to Stay Stingy Against Wake

BY TONY HAYNES

Raleigh, N.C. NC State quarterback Russell Wilson has done something the great Philip Rivers never did during his brilliant career: throw as many as 142 consecutive passes without an interception. Rivers, the ACC’s all-time leader in passing and total offense, had streaks of 126 and 122, respectively, without throwing the football to the wrong colored jersey, but never got to the level of stinginess with the ball that Wilson has.

But on Saturday, Wilson’s impressive mistake-free streak will be tested like never before.

No defense in America has taken the ball away more than Wake Forest, and no cornerback in the ACC over the last 10 years has intercepted more passes than the Deacons’ savvy senior, Alphonso Smith.

So it is that there will certainly be a game within the game’ when the Deacs and Pack collide at Carter-Finley Stadium. The Wolfpack Sports Network will hit the airwaves at 2:30, one hour prior to the 3:30 p.m. kick-off.

“He’s doing such a good job of taking care of the football,” Wake Forest coach Jim Grobe said about Wilson. “A lot of kids when they get flushed out of the pocket, they make mistakes. He doesn’t ever do that; he takes really good care of the football. His ability to improvise and make things happen on the run is really impressive.”

Over his last five games, Wilson has thrown 10 touchdown passes and zero interceptions. The ACC leader in passing efficiency (130.9) has only served up one pick in 168 passing attempts all year.

Waiting to break the code on Saturday will be the irrepressible Smith, a quick, cagy redshirt senior who has 19 career interceptions, just one shy of former North Carolina star Dre’ Bly’s all-time ACC mark.

In NC State’s 27-17 victory over Duke last Saturday, Wilson took a couple of shots downfield when the Blue Devils blitzed and played man coverage on the outside. Relying on receivers Jarvis Williams, Darrell Davis and Owen Spencer to make plays on the ball against Duke’s smallish, inexperienced corners, Wilson simply trusted his receivers to be better than the Duke cornerbacks.

He will have to be much more judicious when Smith is in the area on Saturday.

“What will happen like we saw last week, Russell Wilson will throw the ball up towards a guy like Jarvis Williams who’s 6-5 and has proven he can go up and catch the football, knowing you’ve got better than a 50 percent chance of completing the pass,” said former Wolfpack quarterback and current radio color analyst Johnny Evans. “But when Jarvis is covered by a guy like Alphonso Smith, then you’ve got less than a 50 percent chance. I’d take it down to a 25 percent chance. Smith has a 75 percent chance of coming up with an interception when it’s in that normal 50-50 area. If I’m Russell Wilson and I see one of my receivers running with Smith, I’m not going to throw it up and take that chance because he has great timing and great hands.”

Or as coaches like to call it, Smith has great ball skills for a cornerback. He sees well, times his breaks perfectly and finishes the play by catching the football.

Smith is one of the reasons the Wake Forest defense has taken the ball away a total of 28 times this year. Wake’s plus-14 turnover margin is No. 2 in the country. The NC State offense, on the other hand, has only one turnover in its last four games.

If the Pack can produce another turnover-free game on Saturday, it will have a pretty good shot of pulling off its second straight victory. Of course, against that Deacons’ ball-hogging defense, that’s much easier said than done.

NC State’s offensive key:  To help Wilson out and have the best chance of continuing its turnover-free ways, the Wolfpack must bring the hammer and be willing to go toe-to-toe with one of the league’s most physical defenses. The Pack has rushed for better than 150 yards in each of its last three games, and none of those performances were against Swiss cheese defenses. The front sevens at Florida State, Maryland and Duke are big, quick and physical, meaning a tip of the cap must go to coach Don Horton and his NC State O-line. Once thought to be a liability earlier in the season, the Wolfpack’s offensive front has been doing a good job of opening up running lanes for backs Andre Brown and Jamelle Eugene. At Duke last week, Eugene averaged 8.3 yards per carry.

At the start of the season, Pack coach Tom O’Brien had two major goals: run the football better and stop the run better on defense. Considering it averaged just 89 yards on the ground last year, the Wolfpack has come a long way on the offensive side of that equation.

“It took us only nine games to get there, but that was the focus at the beginning of the year,” O’Brien said this week. “We got more big runs [against] Duke and that helped. We’ve been rushing the ball well now for three weeks. When [tight-end] Anthony Hill came back, it helped us do some things with the offense that helps us run the football. Getting both Brown and Eugene healthy again helped too.”

Wake Forest ranks 20^th in the nation in scoring defense (19 ppg) and 29^th in rushing defense (114.6). In its front seven on defense, the Deacons feature three redshirt seniors, two redshirt juniors and a graduate defensive end in Matt Robinson. Linebacker Aaron Curry is one of the nation’s best defensive players. It all adds up to a mature, physical group that’s tough to move up front.

“I don’t need to watch tape to know how physical they are,” said O’Brien. “Anytime you get as many turnovers as they do, that’s usually a product of your getting hit and the ball is being knocked out or the quarterback is being pressured into rushing throws or making throws he doesn’t want to make.”

Which Wake offense will show up? Consistently the ACC’s best rushing team since Grobe took over in 2001, the Deacons made a curious move at the start of the season. Abandoning some of the quirky reverses and misdirection schemes that had worked so well in the past, the Deacons adopted more of a spread look that was designed to take advantage of more skill at the wideout positions and quarterback Riley Skinner’s accuracy and efficiency. It was an experiment that produced mixed results, and after getting shutout at Maryland, 26-0, on October 18, Grobe made some changes.

“We changed our emphasis a little bit,” Grobe said. “We put too much on Riley Skinner at the start of the year. We were in a lot of spread sets and we were just throwing the ball too much to be honest with you. We were averaging a little less than 40 passes per game. Whenever Riley would have a bad game or our receivers would have a bad game, we were out of our offense. We should have been running the ball more earlier in the season and emphasizing it more.”

It’s strange to see Wake Forest currently ranked 9^th in the ACC in rushing with an average of 113 yards per game, but the numbers reflect more on what was going on earlier in the year instead of what’s been taking place lately. Relying more on power-I sets, the Deacs have gone back to basics of late and figured out how to run the football again. Over their last three games, the Deacons have averaged 150 yards on the ground and in doing so, have balanced out their offense.

With Cary’s Josh Adams expected back in the backfield, Wake will add another weapon to compliment the efforts of redshirt freshman Brandon Pendergrass, who rushed for 110 yards on 27 carries last week.

After welcoming back star linebacker Nate Irving last week, the NC State defense played better against Duke and must continue that improvement this week. The Deacons are capable of pounding you with the running game or relying on Skinner to make plays through the air. Over the last three years, Skinner has been the league’s most accurate passer, often hitting completion rates near 70 percent.

If the Wake Forest offense has an Achilles heel, it could be pass protection. With 21 sacks allowed, the Deacons rank 11^th in the ACC. Getting pressure on Skinner will be critical, otherwise, NC State’s zone coverages could be picked apart by a quarterback who is as good as anyone at throwing into holes of a defense.

Time of possession and turnovers will likely tell the story of this football game. Both offenses have shown an ability to stay on the field for long periods lately, and the two teams have done a great job of taking care of the football.

After notching wins over East Carolina and Duke, NC State is looking to slay another in-state opponent. Wake Forest is tied for first place in the ACC’s Atlantic Division and has designs on making a return appearance to the ACC title game in Tampa.

A November game to remember? Perhaps....

North Carolina State University Athletics

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