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Feeling a longing. For Wake Forest football.
The bye week left me empty. Need some stressful football watching on my weekend. Stabilizes the senses. Need Wake Forest to play again.
Life brings us gifts over and over. In less than two days Wake will run onto the field amid the smoke behind the roaring motorcycle heard all the way to Raleigh. Driven recklessly by the Demon Deacon. Cal will have flown 2-3 miles from Berkeley, CA to Winston-Salem, NC – worlds and cultures apart – in their gorgeous navy blue helmets with the “Cal” in gold script.
We’ll get the color high through our eyes: blue, gold, black, gold, green grass, off-white stadium lights, yellowish nachos, ruby red Fruit Punch Gatorade.
Brace to root against a formidable foe. In his presser this week Dave Clawson described Cal in such glowing terms you got the sense he was telling you about a team called Alabama or Georgia or Ohio State.
Cal is loaded with talent, he said, especially the four dudes in the defensive secondary. If you didn’t know Clawson, you would feel sure Wake has no chance of winning Friday night. But I see through his praise.
He wants his players to prepare to play one of the greatest college football teams in America. He’s putting some trepidation in the minds of his guys, getting their attention, making them think they’re tangling with world beaters.
I love this psychological ploy. Cal is really good but they can’t be as good as he says. Never in my life do I remember Cal being superb in football. Good sometimes, mediocre often, but always beatable. Cal ain’t Bama.
Wake can beat these guys and if they do you, me and the Demon Deacon Sports Nation collectively and in unison are going to feel so good, elevating to 5-4 and three straight wins, sniffing ever closer to a bowl berth.
Something about a Friday night game of football that injects more lubricants into our veins, makes us forget about all other things besides the game itself, thinking about it, breaking it down in our minds before and during the action.
\Wake Forest vs. California. Friday Night Lights.
Just the sound of that gets me jacked.
What also gets me jacked is Clawson’s response to a reporter’s presser question this week about whether he thought two ACC teams would make the 12-team national championship playoff.
He wanted none of it. Not interested, he said. He’s only interested in Wake Forest being considered for that 12-team playoff.
Perfect answer. His competitive inferno still burns.
Notwithstanding all the formidable NIL headwinds, he’s thinking big about where the Wake Forest football program can go.
I thought maybe he was losing his edge, that he wants out.
But if he’s still thinking about taking his team into the Top 10 in the nation again, we all have got to like the way this man thinks, what he believes, how big he dreams.
Crush Cal.
Friday Night Lights delights.
Then get on over to Chapel Hill to rid ourselves of the demons that still haunt us from three years ago.
This season is shaping up as one with an ending we’re all going to get giddy about, roll the Quad in celebration of, meet at a bowl game together, and remember for a long time..
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Sammy Sportface, a sports blogger, galvanizes, inspires, and amuses The Baby Boomer Brotherhood. And you can learn about his vision and join this group's Facebook page here:
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