DeacAssured
Well-known member
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2015
- Messages
- 1,815
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- 103
Gotta call out a line in the article about the poll ranking. Wake was never behind against u*NC-CH. Wake scored first and scored more points in the first half than u*NC-CH scored the whole game. The rally fell short around mid field. There was a lot of grass between the ball spot on the last play and the end zone.
Utah State was a true last second win, scoring the final TD when behind at the time of the score.
All true. Was going more on Clawson's way of thinking (and telling us) that both games were determined in the final.
I appreciate all you do in reporting on Wake. I enjoy your stuff, and I read all of it I can find. I am sure that the article accurately reflects Clawson's thinking and statements.
I was looking at the article from the perspective of someone outside the area and reading it without the context you have from Clawson. I am sure he felt that the outcome was in doubt until the final whistle.
A different take on the game could be that Wake got a big lead early and then withstood a late game rally. The prevent defense did its job in this case. Gave up some ground, while requiring the offense to use clock and ultimately causing the offense to run out of time when they were still a distance from the end zone.
You are about to get (indirectly) a much larger audience than the readers of the Winston-Salem newspaper. As the only print journalist covering Wake regularly, your writing has a great influence on the national perception of Wake.
With Wake stepping into the national spotlight with a top 25 ranking, your stuff will be forming the basis for the national narrative about "cinderella" Wake making noise in the ACC. The Associated Press wire service gets their stuff from somewhere, and for Wake football, it is your write-ups.
Keep up the good work.
Had fun with this one: On Wake Forest's specialists, with an extended look at how Nick Sciba has moved on from the whole not-on-the-field debacle against ND:
https://www.journalnow.com/sports/c...cle_0cc3c68f-e9fb-5126-a50e-0369ca8effa0.html
I’m sure that Sciba will never be late for a play again. He’s trained the page and setting records now.
Also cool how Clawson and the specialists talk.......about anything and everything.
Thank you, and the rest of yall, for reading and for the kind words!
I'll take however large an audience I can get. It'll make the clicks-driven editors happy, hahaha.
@CONeil, I really appreciate you posting your Top 25 ballot each week. Can you explain your thinking more on a team like Michigan? In a vacuum, a team with an ok win over a lower tier program, a super shaky, razor-thin OT win, and a blowout loss, doesn’t make for ranked material to me. Seems them being ranked is more a function of voters being anchored by their pre-season top 10 ranking. If rankings didn’t start until after the first three games of the season, I have to believe they wouldn’t be ranked right now. Would love your take - thanks!
Xmas is coming. Ever think about getting those editors castanets to reinforce their desires?
Oof, it's tricky.
I was just talking to somebody yesterday about the difficulty in deciding when preseason expectations have to be thrown out and body of work has to become the determining factor of rankings. But I think that's something that needs to gradually happen over the first month or so -- otherwise you'd have one week where you just decide that because Alabama has beaten Duke, NM State, South Carolina and Southern Miss. (mediocre difficulty at best), they're not a top-5 team. ... I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I know Alabama is one of the five (really, two) best teams in the country (sorry, Biff).
So, the short answer is: I'm trying to gradually ignore preseason rankings/hype/thoughts. This early in the season, though, I don't think it can be all about body of work.
Also, I'm not going to drop a team astronomically far (15-plus spots) for losing a road game against a team I'm moving into the top 10.