FSU football vs. Wake Forest: 3 major differences to look for Saturday

Parting Thoughts

There are a lot of things in FSU’s favor. Wake Forest just had an extremely physical overtime game against Clemson.

I put more stock into the physical demand of that game than the emotional part. Wake Forest is a veteran team, and they won’t allow a game like that to impact them mentally. However, it’s not like FSU hasn’t faced Sam Hartman since the 2018 season.

Sam Hartman has improved a ton since then, but FSU has had success in slowing down this Wake Forest offense. They held Wake Forest to 3.54 yards per play and 17 points in 2018. The 2019 FSU defense held Wake Forest to 22 points and 5.44 yards per play.

The first half of last year’s game saw Wake Forest run 54 plays for 333 yards for a 6.16 ypp average. That includes three FSU turnovers and a couple of gratuitous flags that helped Wake Forest continue drives on third down(running into the kicker and a personal foul call, although the Wake Forest running was still inbounds) in key situations.

FSU’s offense only ran 51 plays but averaged 6.21 ypp, despite all the limitations. The latter won’t be the case Saturday afternoon.

We’re going to line it up and let the chips fall where they may. However, I believe FSU’s “A” game is at a different level than Wake Forest’s “A” game. FSU is the more complete and more talented team.