First and foremost ...
Mary Mother of God, it was unbelievably hot. I heard they were talking about it on TV, but unless you were there, you have NO idea how hot it was. It was supposedly 95 there (and my sunburns can attest to this), but with the concrete steps and walk, plus the metal bleachers, who the heck knows how hot it really was for the fans. I'm guessing 120+ for the game.
Literally, I was there 90 minutes before kickoff, by the 3rd quarter I was literally going to pass out. I had screamed my lungs out, standing up the entire game and I had to sit for half of the 3rd quarter, and until 2 mins to go in the 4th when I told the guy in front of me to just pick me up if I fall over.
A few parents had to leave the game with their kids because it literally was unsafe to keep them in that type of heat.
I know some of you will say I should have gotten a water to hydrate myself. Tell that to the 50 or so people standing in each line. They were out of water by halftime.
Now about the game ...
1.) Groves Stadium, errr, BB&T Field, whatever the heck it is called -- pure junk of a stadium. I don't care what anyone says about it being a beautiful stadium. It literally makes NAIA stadiums I have been to look like Heaven. Their field is beautiful, but the actual stadium and its layout is garbage. The replay board looked like something from the 70's. More on this later.
2.) Besides the Wake student section, that stadium was packed with red and white. Their motto of 'Paint It Black' was weakkkkk. The west side of the stadium (Wake's side) was mostly white. The upper corners of Wake's side was painted red as well. The east side of the stadium was painted red as well, besides the student section. The only Wake Forest fans I saw on the east side were 2 kids in front of me (their parents were Nebraska fans), and about 5 kids towards the first row. But I do have to give credit to their students, they are freakin' loud.
If I'm guessing on the attendance, probably 55-45 in favor of Nebraska.
3.) I've seen some bashing of Sam Keller. Why -- I don't understand. Besides an overthrow pass on the sideline to Swift (who was wide open), he really didn't make any terrible throws. His INT was a make or break INT by their corner. If he doesn't make that diving catch, Nate Swift takes that to the house since their was no safety help on that side.
4.) Two things I noticed about the QB's -- Patrick Witt has switched his number to #2, and Zac Lee was absent today. Either he is definitely taking a redshirt, or he simply didn't make the trip.
5.) Jaivorio Burkes is a large, large, LARGE man.
6.) When people talked about Adi Kunalic having a different sound when he kicks the ball, they were not lying. If you have played baseball, and your coach has ever made you hit a tire with a bat, it sounds pretty much like that.
7.) While I'm on the subject of kickers, I want to compare Henery to Kunalic. Unless Henery simply cannot kickoff, Kunalic doesn't need to be out there right now. He still has quite a bit to learn about harnessing his leg strength, plus getting much more height on his kicks. I'll talk more about KO's in a minute. But Henery's leg strength is NOT behind Kunalic's at all. Henery hit two 57 yard FGs in warmups with room to spare, back-to-back I might add.
8.) Our KO coverage was fantastic today. Kunalic's low liners he tries to put out of the end zone are going to haunt us sooner or later. He literally gives them zero chance to in the position they truly need to be. If not for guys like Thenarse, Blue and Octo, we would be suffering big time.
9.) Kevin Dixon. Literally, a waste of space today. I know our entire defensive line suffered today, but my God, he was getting murdered at the POA today.
10.) It seemed our defensive ends and OLB's have no idea about containment at all versus a misdirection team. How many times were they going to crash in on a fake handoff, only to be fooled? It literally got sickening how they were not willing to stay home on the outside.
11.) Wake kicked the dog out of us up front -- on both sides of the ball. Carl Nicks, just wow. If he plays a much more horrid game than he did today, I may go smack him in the face and ask him if he knows what game he is playing. I literally felt sorry for Keller when he dropped back because of Nicks.
12.) Still wondering if Suh hurt his oblique. When Green was helped off (Dixon also got hurt on the play), Suh came off as well in some pain. Looked they were trying to stretch out his midsection while he was trying to catch his breath a bit.
13.) I'm sure I am missing some things I wanted to say, but was the last INT a pick or not? That replay board was so craptacular, I still have no clue if it was or wasn't. From the view (or lack thereof) they gave us, it certainly looked like an INT.
14.) Ah yes, how can I forget the two rollout passes we were burnt on. The first where Asante and Green got their coverages mixed up (definitely looked like Green's man), and when Murillo got beat for the huge gain to the 1 yard line. We finally rolled safety help over the top, along with a corner to put an end to that play working. Hodges still got a 6-7 yard gain on a run, IIRC.
