Run Up The Score

I don't think any of us will be happy campers on Saturday night unless we're on the winning side of a lopsided score. Wake Forest is mediocrity at its finest. Which means they're not terrible. Which means they're competitive enough to where we shouldn't be shy about going point hunting.

Now I don't like to see teams run up the score in theory. I buy into the notion of sportsmanship and displaying some class on the grass. But there is something to be said about going balls out against lesser opponents and putting up big numbers.

It gives your team swagger.

And I think we could use some swagger right now. We were sluggish as hell last week. Everyone knows it. We need a decisive victory to inject some fuel back in our momentum tank. Some coaches do this purposefully. For example. Urban Meyer. He does a great job at winning big in the little games to keep his team at full swagger. You can hate on Urban Meyer all you want for issuing these beat downs. But he has brought home two coach's trophies.

Let's go big.

They key to getting a monstrous win this week isn't necessarily about our offense. Although you could probably make the argument that the key to a big win is just running the ball on offense. But given our size and talent advantage it seems so freaking obvious that I don't think it can be called a key to winning the game. We could just consider it the key to maybe losing the game if we don't do it. It's critical and we did a shitty job of committing ourselves to it against NC State. Hopefully we'll change that this week. Moving on.

The key to a big win against Wake is on our secondary.

Wake's BMOC on offense is wide receiver Michael Campanaro. He leads the ACC with 8 catches per game. And our pass defense is third to last in the conference. So it's pretty clear what they're going to try and do. The question is whether or not our DBs' cojones will drop so they can step up their game.

Travis Blanks needs to learn how to tackle. Smith needs to learn how to read the defense. The play from these safeties so far has been lackluster. The definition of a safety is literally to be the safety net. You can't be a safety net if you can't tackle. Both Breeland and Robinson have been okay at corner in my opinion. They just need to be more physical. But as a whole this unit is underperforming. Our DL is getting good pressure on opposing QBs. It's time for the DBs to get pissed and play with something to prove. Because right now they don't look like they're the reason we're considered the number 3 team in the nation.

I hope this unit plays balls out and helps us get a grossly large win. But Wake makes me nervous to be honest. More so than NC State last week. I thought we would win that game and the score was pretty much where I thought it would be. I just thought we'd look better doing it. Anyway. The intelligence aspect of Wake is what gives me the willies. I respect this team. Smart kids play smart football. Smart football wins a heck of a lot of chess matches. And they're smart enough every year to be a perennial upsetter. We had to come from behind to win two years ago. And I remember the 2008 game where I wanted to chew on a billiard ball to dull the pain of being humiliated on national TV.

And maybe that's the real reason I want a big win this week. So what if it is? This isn't SC State. This is a conference game. I want to see a conference beat down. We're at home. The game is at a marvelous 3:30 PM. I want to see McDowell crossing the plane so many times the game looks like a GIF.

I wanna see some swagger.

What do yall think the key element is to bagging a big win this week?