Numbers can be deceiving. Wake Forest is ninth in the ACC in overall defense (350.2 YPG), sixth in rushing defense, fifth in pass efficiency defense, and the Deacons have allowed the 8th most first downs among the 12 conference teams. They also allow more third down conversions than seven other clubs in the conference.

A dominant defense? Hardly. So how are the Demon Deacons 6-2 overall and winners of six in a row? The Deacs’ M.O. is to not only capitalize on missed opportunities by other teams, but to make opportunities of their own. Wake Forest is tied for second in turnover margin at +0.88 per game, forcing 24 turnovers and giving up 17. Wake has 13 interceptions and 11 fumble recoveries.

What’s different about the Deacs is that they’ve turned seven of those 24 take-aways into immediate offense. Wake leads the league in non-offensive touchdowns with nine. The Deacons have more non-offensive touchdowns than they do passing touchdowns. Wake Forest has scored 84 points off of turnovers this season (nine touchdowns, seven field goals).

Statistics

• Wake Forest has scored 84 points off turnovers this season. Of the 24 turnovers the Deacons have received this year, they have converted 16 into points. Wake Forest has turned the turnovers into nine touchdowns and seven field goals.
• The Deacon defense has held five of its eight opponents to less than 100 yards rushing, including Boston College (57), Army (91), Duke (95), Florida State (47), and UNC (77). In 2006, Wake held seven opponents to less than 100 yards rushing.
• Wake Forest has intercepted a pass in seven of eight games this season. The Deacon defense has intercepted two or more passes in six of eight games.
• Four teams have passed for more than 250 yards this season and thrown more than 40 passes. In those four games, Wake lost two and won the others by their lowest victory total of the season, three (FSU) and five (Duke) points.

Coach Groh Says …

“They’ve scored nine touchdowns that were non-offensive this year. Obviously, that’s a tremendous factor. It doesn’t indicate who controls the line of scrimmage better but that’s not the point. The point is simply to get more points than the other guy. … It’s not about who’s superior or inferior and, in fact, in a large majority of these games, you really couldn’t say one team played superior ball and the other team played inferior ball – it’s just who can get more points and it doesn’t matter how you get them. That they’ve got nine non-offensive touchdowns tells the story why they’ve won six games in a row.”

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