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16 close losses since the Orange Bowl

bobknightfan said:
By the way, I'm just throwing this stuff out for discussion. I don't have any hidden agenda. I'm 100% behind Jim Grobe. However, I think we have been losing a lot of games during the last five years that we should've won. We don't seem to be very effective at closing wins in the 4th quarter.....and I just thought this thread might offer up some reasons why posters think this has been the case.
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Before Coach Grobe we weren't even in games, so it's hard to complain about being 12 for 28 (or whatever it is) instead of say 2-28 against bowl eligible teams.
 
I don't have the stats handy but in the years leading up to our Orange Bowl year the same was true - we lost several games/year by less than 7 (seems like one year maybe as many as 5); then the law of averages finally caught up with us in '06 and we WON all of those close games we had been losing the past few years - maybe next year we'll see the same trend in our favor
 
Deacsfan27 said:
Fine....it probably says that we aren't very good against defending the triple option...add us to the list of teams across the nation.
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In 2010 we held Navy to 3 points below their average. In 2009 we held Navy to 20 points below their average. In 2008 we held Navy to 4 points below their average. In 2007 we held Navy to 16 points below their average.

This is admittedly pretty weak/flawed analysis, but can you really say the defense was the problem?
 
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Deacsfan27 said:
Before Coach Grobe we weren't even in games, so it's hard to complain about being 12 for 28 (or whatever it is) instead of say 2-28 against bowl eligible teams.
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sigh...

As myself and many others pointed out yesterday, there comes a time when you have to graduate from moral victories and being proud of being competitive to actually being able to finish out a close game on top. Especially when closing out the game means not making bone headed errors, miserably predictable playcalls, and failing to execute things within our control.

I like Jim Grobe and I think he's the right coach for our school for sure, but it is damn frustrating to see us stuck at the "yay we're competitive" plateau.
 
Our coaches have often put us in position to make the 3 or 4 key plays we needed to have a great season.

One year, we made those plays. Even a few of the years we only made a couple of those plays, we have had some of the best Wake seasons in history.
 
WakeUp08 said:
sigh...

As myself and many others pointed out yesterday, there comes a time when you have to graduate from moral victories and being proud of being competitive to actually being able to finish out a close game on top. Especially when closing out the game means not making bone headed errors, miserably predictable playcalls, and failing to execute things within our control.

I like Jim Grobe and I think he's the right coach for our school for sure, but it is damn frustrating to see us stuck at the "yay we're competitive" plateau.
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Agreed that there comes a time to get past moral victories. But the reality is Grobe has raised the bar here and will be here most likely until he decides to leave. I am not saying that folks on here don't have the right to complain or be frustrated when we lose. It's like I said in the game thread yesterday, the dislike of Lobo is understandable but Lobo IS Grobe's guy.

I am frustrated that we haven't finished games. Frankly that's been an issue in Wake athletics, football and basketball, for so many years. My theory has been while we may be able to absolutely compete with most programs in games, despite huge recruiting gaps, the more talented programs finish games better then we do. You can call that a cop out or whatever, that's just my opinion. The programs with the more talented players excecute when it matters and frankly can afford more mistakes then we can. It's frustrating that we didn't finish yesterday and blew a huge opportunity. But Jim Grobe, like him or not, is here to stay.
 
WakeUp08 said:
sigh...

As myself and many others pointed out yesterday, there comes a time when you have to graduate from moral victories and being proud of being competitive to actually being able to finish out a close game on top. Especially when closing out the game means not making bone headed errors, miserably predictable playcalls, and failing to execute things within our control.

I like Jim Grobe and I think he's the right coach for our school for sure, but it is damn frustrating to see us stuck at the "yay we're competitive" plateau.
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How many times have we ever defeated a top 10 team (much less on the road)?

I agree that it's frustrating that we lost the game yesterday (and many in the past three years), but it's a trade-off that we have to be willing to make to be competitive. People just seem to think that we can be perfect and win all the close games, and that is just not feasible, particularly when we get down the stretch and are close (or even with a team), and they have more talent than we do.

I'm sorry, but those are just the facts.
 
Deacsfan27 said:
How many times have we ever defeated a top 10 team (much less on the road)?

I agree that it's frustrating that we lost the game yesterday (and many in the past three years), but it's a trade-off that we have to be willing to make to be competitive. People just seem to think that we can be perfect and win all the close games, and that is just not feasible, particularly when we get down the stretch and are close (or even with a team), and they have more talent than we do.

I'm sorry, but those are just the facts.
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100% agreed!
 
Wake hasn't defeated a top 10 team on the road since 1946. Grobe has had two very near misses in the last 3 years. (GT 2009 and Clemson 2011)
 
bobknightfan said:
I'm well aware of that. I went to my first Wake Forest football game on October 11th, 1958. We beat NC State 13-7 at Bowman Gray Stadium.
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Spouting off information isn't going to make me think you are more intelligent honestly. Just makes me well aware of the fact that you have been a Wake fan for a long time (with a long break in between).
 
The talent gap b/w Wake and most of our opponents is not nearly as wide as some would have you believe. It's fine to use that excuse for a loss like yesterday's, but it's not like all those close games were against top ten teams.
 
inspectah said:
The talent gap b/w Wake and most of our opponents is not nearly as wide as some would have you believe. It's fine to use that excuse for a loss like yesterday's, but it's not like all those close games were against top ten teams.
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The NFL seems to disagree, not that that is the only or best indicator.
 
ChrisL68 said:
Wake hasn't defeated a top 10 team on the road since 1946. Grobe has had two very near misses in the last 3 years. (GT 2009 and Clemson 2011)
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He missed. You must mean near hits.
 
How about Florida State, NC State and BC this year. Any problems with those games?
 
bobknightfan said:
In the five seasons since the Orange Bowl, we have lost 16 games by a touchdown or less....and 12 of those games were by 4 points or less:

2007: Nebraska-3, Virginia-1
2008: Navy-7, Miami-6, NC State-4, BC-3
2009: Baylor-3, BC-3, Navy-3, Miami-1, Ga Tech-3
2010: Ga Tech-4, Navy-1
2011: Syracuse-7, Notre Dame-7, Clemson-3

In 11 of those 16 games, we had 2nd half leads.....and 4th quarter leads in 8 of them.
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2007
Nebraska (Marion TD drop/Refs screwed us on the last play when Kenny Moore was held on 4th down throw inside their terriotory)

UVA (Swank misses a long Field goal. We should have run one more play to get closer. Bad coaching decision.)


2008

Navy - Aliens replaced Rile Skinner's brain that game.
Miami - Grobe pissed about not running the ball the week before lined up in the I and ran it 50 times, dinging up both of our backs and after the game Miami players said they knew exactly what we were going to run.

2009

Navy (sat on the ball at the end of the half at midfield in a torrential down pour/bad coaching decision)
Miami - Brown punt fumble coupled with seemingly a dozen chances to stop them. PLus totally fucked by the refs on the most egregous holding call on a run play. That one call cost us the game and I'm still pissed.

BC - Riley fumbles in OT after great comeback at 1. Sure win pissed away.

Tech - was really good. We had them on the ropes but simply could not stop them. I would have gone for it on 4th and 12 from their 35 with 50 seconds left and given Riley a chance to win it. No way we were going to stop them in ot. but we punted. we sat on the lead at the end of that game.
Baylor - just came up short on last drive against Griffin III in a great game.


I would say some different decisions and maybe the refs not screwing us would have flipped about 1/2 of those.

Duke - on the win side. Gee - I try not to even think about it
 
BC and NC State suck. We should expect to win games like that. FSU was a great and unexpected win.
 
RedSoxFaithful said:
What the fuck is your point?

Jesus Christ. You are the Norm MacDonald of trolls, minus the funny.
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keeper's comment has everything to do with this thread, and it a really poor use of the troll accusation.

YOU DISAGREE WITH ME, THEREFORE YOU ARE A TROLL!!11111!!!
 
RedSoxFaithful said:
What the fuck is your point?

Jesus Christ. You are the Norm MacDonald of trolls, minus the funny.
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My point is whenever we beat them it is and should be an upset. Big school, huge following, much easier for walkons to help, etc. Simple logic, really.
 
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