Slipper may fit Wake

Unheralded Deacons playing for ACC title

JACKSONVILLE, FLA. -- Georgia Tech football coach Chan Gailey does not believe in fairy tales, especially any casting Wake Forest as a glass-slippered darling armed only with pluck and luck.

"I hope they play like Cinderella; that would be nice," Gailey said Friday of today's ACC title game. "But I don't think they are. They are a tough, physical football team that we've got to get ready for.

"Everybody wants to talk about their razzle-dazzle stuff. They are physical. You better get that other junk out of your head."

It has not been a vintage offensive year for Wake Forest, forced by injuries to rely almost all year on a redshirt freshman at quarterback and, more recently, receiver Kenneth Moore at running back. Yet the program's first ACC championship in 36 years is within reach, in part because Wake's offense has evolved beyond a quirky grab-bag of misdirection and counter plays.

"The key is not doing it too much," Wake coach Jim Grobe said. "I think doing it as a mixer rather than a staple kind of helps us out. You know we like to run the football down inside, and so if you are going to take the inside game away, it gives us a chance to get out on the perimeter."

Wake's offense ranked only 97th nationally, averaging 302 yards a game. They will be facing an aggressive Yellow Jackets defense that resembles the Virginia Tech unit that limited Wake to only 62 yards rushing in a 27-6 Hokies' win on Nov. 18.

Yet, Wake also racked up a plus-12 turnover margin this year and generated big plays with Riley Skinner taking over for the injured Ben Mauk at quarterback and earning second-team All-ACC honors.

"Playing in this offense is fun. You get to do everything," said Skinner, a redshirt freshman from Jacksonville (Fla.) Bolles. "I get to throw the ball, run it, block, I have even caught a pass. Everything is great, the reverses are just another play for us. So I don't know too many schemes that can be as fun and keep the defense on their heels like ours does."

Georgia Tech's defense ranked third-best in the ACC in rushing defense (88.8 yards a game) and racked up a second-best 31 sacks. Junior defensive end Adamm Oliver said the Jackets can't get distracted by the threat of Wake's feints and misdirections, a challenge with an aggressive defense like Georgia Tech's.

"We're concentrating on not everybody getting wandering eyes," Oliver said. "If everybody is looking where the ball is, that's where you get in trouble."

While most teams try to attack you downfield, Gailey said, Wake's strength is stretching a defense sideline to sideline.

"They are so lateral all the time, they get you running east and west, and all of a sudden they hit you up the middle with that big fullback or the tailback, or a post to [receiver Willie] Idlette," Gailey said. "So they've really evolved."

But Wake Forest (10-2) can not afford to get too cute against the schemes of Georgia Tech defensive coordinator Jon Tenuta, who likes to blitz through different gaps to sow confusion.

"If they hit you right like Virginia Tech did to us a couple of times, they're in your backfield waiting for those guys to come around on the orbits and the reverses and the speed sweeps," Grobe said. "What they do by bringing five [players rushing] most of the time, they vacate some zones. And so your thought would be, if you can find those holes in the zone, that you can throw the football. The key is getting it off."

If it takes a pinch of gambling to burn Georgia Tech, however, count Wake offensive coordinator Steed Lobotzke as all in. The Yellow Jackets (9-3) have won four of the past five in this series, but Wake and Georgia Tech did not play this year.

"I like to go against a team one time and come up with a bunch of new tricks for them and then leave," he said. "If you play them a second time, you've got to find a bunch of more tricks.

"For us, half of our offense is smoke and mirrors. Play them one time, give 'em your best smoke and mirrors and see what you can get away with."

(Staff writer A.J. Carr contributed to this report.)