After each team opened their seasons with convincing wins over FCS competition, the Wake Forest Demon Deacons and the Syracuse Orange open up ACC action this Saturday. The Deacons defeated the Elon Phoenix at home 41-3 while Syracuse dominated the Rhode Island Rams 47-0 in the Carrier Dome, which is the site for this upcoming contest.
Against Elon, Sophomore QB John Wolford was the star of the show. The young quarterback made plays with both his arm and his legs as he led the Deacons in passing yards and rushing yards on the day. He also contributed to four Deacons touchdowns, three from the air and one impressive 70-yard rushing touchdown in which Wolford broke free from a blitz and followed tremendous blocking downfield to score.
The Demon Deacons also received an offensive boost from quite a few freshman. RB Matt Colburn, WR Cortez Lewis, and WR Chuck Wade each were able to find the endzone in their first ever Wake Forest game.
For Syracuse, the victory they had in week one was tainted a little bit because of unfortunate injuries to their quarterback, Terrel Hunt and their leading receiver, Ervin Phillips. Hunt is out for season after surgery on his Achilles tendon while Phillips is just missing some time due to a lower body injury. To replace Hunt, the Orange will look to Eric Dungey to fill the void, which he did well against Rhode Island going 10 for 17 for 114 yards and two touchdowns and no interceptions. With Phillips out, Syracuse will have to rely more heavily on RB Jordan Fredericks who had 103 yards on 14 carries and a touchdown, carrying majority of the load for the Orange in their last game.
The crowd should be pumped up for another Syracuse home game, especially the conference opener. Wake needs to be prepared to deal with both the Orange and the crowd when they travel to upstate New York on Saturday. The freshmen will have their first ever collegiate road test and that alone can be a difficult test, but there just is a lot more on the line in conference play and Coach Clawson will need to have his young team ready to go from the opening kick.
Syracuse will try to get the crowd into the game early and will try to play to their strength which is running the football, taking a lot of pressure off of QB Dungey. The veteran leadership of LB Brandon Chubb and LB Hunter Williams for Wake Forest will try to shut down that run game and force Syracuse into third and long situations. If Wake Forest can do that and get the same amount of offensive production, the Demon Deacons should head back to Winston-Salem with another win.