Remember when our Cardinals beat Wake Forest to win the program’s first Orange Bowl?

Remember Coach Satt’s win over Wake Forest during his first season? I’m hoping history repeats itself today as the Cardinals travel to Winston-Salem to play the 4-0 Deamon Deacons. They are 2-0 in the ACC after beating Virginia last week.

Wake has had a solid start and been led by a defense ranked 5th in the country in turnovers gained with 11. The Demon Deacon defense also sees themselves inside of the top-25 in several other categories: Scoring D (9th, 14.2 PPG), Redzone D (5th, .545), TFL/G (7th, 8.5), Turnover Margin (4th, +1.75 per game).

They also have a pretty good QB. Dating back to last season, Sam Hartman has now thrown at least one touchdown pass in eight straight games. Over that stretch he has 18 touchdown passes to seven different receivers. He hung 270 yards and three touchdowns on Virginia last week.

Oh, and did I mention their kicker? Nick Sciba is on his way to becoming the most accurate kicker in NCAA history. During his time at Wake Forest, he is 64-of-71 (.901), the best mark for any kicker in NCAA and ACC history (min. 50 att).

Wake did show some chink in the armor giving up 506 total yards last week against Virginia including 407 through the air and 31 first downs. I think the Cardinals and Malik Cummingham could find similar success on Saturday. But we do have to mention the big red elephant in the room.

After a high octane first half against FSU, the Cardinals went silent in the second half last weekend, finishing on 395 total yards, 4.9 yards per play, and 21 first downs. If the Cardinals can’t get it going on the scoreboard early in this game it could be rough. I’m hoping that Coach Satt just took his foot off the gas last week and that we are going to see a lot of scoring from the Cards in this one throughout.

Cunningham is the leading rusher with 263 yards on the season which is good for 5th in the ACC. He also ranks 7th in the conference with 998 passing yards. He’s starting to spread the ball around thru the air. Louisville had a variety of receivers make contributions last game with Tyler Harrell leading the way with two catches for 61 yards. Meanwhile, team-leading receiver, Marshon Ford hauled in a team-high six catches for 52 yards.

The Louisville defense has stepped it up big time with guys like LB Jack Fagot who made a career-high 10 tackles last week. He now has 25 total tackles on the year and is currently the team leader. His 25 tackles have him ranked 24th in the ACC. The Cardinal defense is right in the thick of things ranking seventh in the ACC (18.5 points). They’ll have to come up big in this one against the very efficient Wake offense.

The game between these teams back in 2019 was the 2nd highest-scoring game in the history of the ACC. I don’t think we can win a shootout here. Just don’t think a high-scoring game gets it done for either side. This game is a tale of two defenses. What side breaks first and breaks the most. I like our defense. They’ve had to stand tough the last few weeks and came thru big and I believe they will today.

Should be a good game. Hope it’s another one of those “remember when”… With a win.