NC State Must Find A Way To Stop Wake Forest’s Explosive Offense

NC State’s defense has their hands full tonight with the Wake Forest offense. Seriously.

I’m not sure there is a team in the country that has been more explosive on offense than the Demon Deacons over the past 3 weeks.

vs. Louisville – 625 yards of offense
vs. Note Dame – 587 yards of offense
vs. Syracuse – 734 yards of offense

Over those three games, Wake has averaged 46.7 points per game.

Senior Quarterback John Wolford leads the ACC in Passing Efficiency Rating (162.8), but what he’s done over the past three games is silly: 385 yards passing per game, 10 touchdowns to 1 interception, completing 69.2% of his passes.

Wolford also has a lot of different weapons at his disposal, with 5 different receivers

Junior Running Back Matt Colburn has been on a tear over this stretch as well. After not rushing for 100 yards in a game for the first 7 games of the season, he has crossed the century mark in each of the last three games, averaging 163.6 yards per game (234 yards against Syracuse last week).

NC State’s best defense today could be their offense. Long, sustained drives. That’s the name of the game. Win the time of possession battle, and you put yourself in the driver’s seat.

At the same time there is some good news. Wake’s defense has allowed the opponents to move the ball at will the past three games. The Demon Deacons have given up an average of 618 yards per game the past three games.

If NC State can keep Wake’s offense off the field they’ll have success. But if they get held to 3-and-outs they could be in for a long night.