FSU football: 3 things in favor of Noles against Wake Forest

FSU Can Run on Wake Forest

The FSU offense has faults, but they can run the ball. We saw them have success against Notre Dame when they committed to it, and Wake Forest is susceptible to it as well. The two FCS teams averaged 3.67 yards per carry against Wake Forest and the Noles average 5.45 yards per carry through two games. The Noles haven’t run the ball enough, and I hope that’s something that changes Saturday. I don’t want to see the stupid wildcat. I want to see FSU line up and run the ball straight at Wake Forest. That will force them to bring more guys in the box and will help open up the passing game a couple of ways. The play-action game will become more effective in that capacity, and it’ll give the Noles more opportunities to create 1-on-1 matchups. The question is can they win those opportunities when they present themselves? However, back to the running game. If the Noles run the ball successfully, it’ll do a few things:

• Help sustain drives and gives a defense with limited depth time to recover
• Wears Wake Forest Down
• Wake Forest’s offensive possessions
• Limits the amount of FSU penalties since most seem to come in the passing game
• Makes third downs more manageable

Wake Forest has allowed 13 percent (10 of 78) of the runs against them to go for at least 10 yards in two games against FCS competiton. It’ll be interesting to see how Mike Norvell decides to attack offensively. He usually adapts to what his teams are best at in years past, and if that’s the case Saturday, we’ll see a lot of the ‘Noles run game.