Wake Forest coach Jim Grobe promised quarterback Riley Skinner that he wouldn't scheme anything crazy Saturday against the Miami Hurricanes like he did last year at Dolphin Stadium.

He also promised his wife.

``I gotta tell you,'' Grobe said Wednesday. ``My wife Holly reminded me when I was coming in Monday morning not to lose my mind this week. She didn't really like my plan to run the football last year.''

Run? Try run and run and run and run and -- you get the idea -- for 24 consecutive plays. Wake didn't even attempt to pass until 11:26 of the second quarter. But more on that later.

The Demon Deacons (4-4, 2-2 Atlantic Coast Conference) will play the No. 18 Hurricanes (5-2, 2-2) at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at BB&T Field in Winston-Salem, N.C. It is an ACC matchup that suddenly became more critical after North Carolina upset Virginia Tech on the final play Thursday night.

Miami and Virginia Tech each has two losses in the ACC's Coastal Division. Georgia Tech's only loss this season was at Miami. The Yellow Jackets play at Vanderbilt on Saturday and have two ACC opponents left: Wake Forest next weekend and at Duke Nov. 14.

Virginia Tech is at East Carolina next week but finishes with three ACC opponents: Nov. 14 at Maryland, Nov. 21 against NC State and Nov. 28 at Virginia.

There are too many scenarios to analyze, but just know that if Georgia Tech loses one of its two ACC games and UM wins its next four -- including next week against Virginia for Homecoming, Nov. 14 at UNC and Nov. 21 against Duke -- the Hurricanes will be in the thick of the Coastal Division race.

``We want to finish 10-2, 11-2 eventually,'' UM center A.J. Trump said. ``[That's] a good season. It's not what we wanted, but every game is huge. It's our national championship this week.''

Wake Forest used to be an ACC bottom feeder. But that all changed when fifth-year senior quarterback Riley Skinner began playing in 2006. Skinner, the ACC Rookie of the Year that season, led the Deacons to an 11-3 record and their first ACC Championship. They went on to lose to Louisville in the FedEx Orange Bowl.

UM has yet to get into the ACC title game.

``It's a tough league,'' Grobe said. ``You've got to catch some breaks and have people stay healthy. Typically the best teams end up on top, but you've got to have a little luck along the way.''

Better than luck, Wake has Skinner. He recently moved into sixth place on the ACC career completion list with 795, and has broken most of Wake's career passing marks. He enters the UM game with 8,551 career yards -- 10th all-time in the ACC. If Skinner exceeds 50 yards Saturday, he will join former N.C. State quarterback Philip Rivers as the only ACC quarterbacks to have throw for 2,000 yards or more in all four seasons.

Skinner ranks behind UM's Jacory Harris this season in ACC passing, completing 156 of 239 passes (65.3 percent) for 16 touchdowns, with nine interceptions.

Wake has lost its last two games, 38-3 at Clemson and last week in driving rain and wind at Navy. Three of four losses were by three points.

Wake has an undergraduate enrollment of 4,476. It is the third-smallest school in the country to field teams in Division I-A, and the smallest among the Bowl Championship Series schools.

Skinner grew up a Georgia Bulldogs fan in Jacksonville and graduated from Bolles High. He said he never liked the Florida schools -- especially the Gators -- because his mother and sister went to Georgia and his father went to Georgia Tech. His only Division I offers came from Hawaii and Miami of Ohio, until Wake offered him its last scholarship a week before signing day of 2005.

``The difference between the 2006 season and now is that we snuck up on people before,'' Skinner said. ``We were picked last in the conference that year and the mindset was `Little Wake Forest.' No one took us seriously. Since then the target has gotten bigger on our backs.''

As for last year's game, which UM won 16-10, Skinner said his coach chose to teach the Deacons a lesson after they got shut out by Maryland the previous week. ``We had 12 or 13 dropped balls and Coach Grobe was tired of seeing the ball hit the ground,'' Skinner said. ``It was pretty unbelievable how he started the Miami game. Probably the strangest game I ever played in.''

Join the discussion

The Miami Herald is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. In order to post comments, you must be a registered user of MiamiHerald.com. Your username will show along with the comments you post. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.

     Showing: Oldest first Newest first Most-recommended first Least-recommended first

@Nyx.AuthorDisplayName@ wrote on @Nyx.PostedAtTime@:

@Nyx.repliedToText@

@Nyx.replyAnswerText@

Reply to this Comment @Nyx.Recommender@ @Nyx.AbuseReporter@