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JULY VISION: WFU's Skinner sees history on horizon
Journal photo by Jennifer Rotenizer
“We’d love to leave it kind of like we started it, if not better,’’ QB Riley Skinner said.
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Published: July 27, 2009
GREENSBORO -- Riley Skinner is really tan. A summer in Florida will do that.
Skinner is also reasonably certain that some folks will overlook Wake Forest's evolving football team and that Wake Forest will make those folks pay. Three years as a contender's starting quarterback will do that.
His unspoken confidence says so. The routinely undetected blip on the ACC radar screen says so. Recent history (28 wins in three seasons) says so.
Skinner made some of that history. Mere minutes into his redshirt-freshman season, Skinner was thrust onto the field as the stunned replacement for injured starter Ben Mauk. The Deacons rallied and eventually won the 2006 ACC championship, 36 years after their only other conference title.
He can still smell the oranges. He can still visualize his senior class playing for oranges.
"We'd love to leave it kind of like we started it, if not better," Skinner said yesterday during the ACC's preseason football gathering.
Every player dreams, and the dreams thrive under July's broiling sun more than under the sharp light of November's reality check. The Deacons' dreams seem especially large because linebacker Aaron Curry, cornerback Alphonso Smith and five other defensive starters evaporated under the eligibility heat lamp.
Personnel changes suggest that Wake Forest will need gobs of points to stay afloat in warp-speed scoreboard duels. Senior tackle John Russell shakes his head.
"As a defensive player," Russell said, "you kind of hate to hear that."
The theory involves some exaggeration. Coach Jim Grobe will make adjustments, but a winner who prefers low risks and low turnover rates comes off an unlikely candidate at the football gunslinger's convention.
Spring practice ended with eight seniors on the first-team offense. A veteran line and tailback depth could entice Grobe to rely on the running game, a proven launching pad for Skinner's deep strikes against a reactionary defense.
Skinner doubts that Wake Forest will subscribe to high-risk, high-voltage solutions. He expects offensive coordinator Steed Lobotzke to devise creative alternatives, and he expects game-breaking receivers to emerge from D.J. Boldin's shadow. (Two explosive candidates: Chris Givens, Terence Davis.)
From the quarterback's perspective, the daunting issue remains consistency. The Deacons veered all over the map last season, emphasizing the pass early and the run late but never settling into a comfortable rhythm. Navy intercepted Skinner four times during a September upset, but in the EagleBank Bowl rematch, Skinner completed all 11 passes without an interception and won the MVP award.
He enters his final year as the most efficient passer in school history and has a shot at several career records. Skinner ranks first on the all-time ACC list for completion percentage, just ahead of Virginia's Matt Schaub (67.3 percent to 67.0 percent). When he picks spots and avoids picks, Skinner is difficult to beat. He is 19-3 in games without interceptions, but 7-8 when he suffers an interception.
"He's such a steady guy," Russell said. "He is who he is. That's kind of a cliché, but he just does the little things great. With him growing up as a senior, I just see even more confidence than I saw before. People talk about his level of confidence as a freshman, coming in and playing so well. Well, he doesn't beat himself up over things. He puts his head down and fights through it. He's a great player and a great leader."
Skinner insists that he became a Deacon because he played with Russell at the Bolles School in Florida.
"Basically I got looked at because of him," Skinner said. "He was one of their top recruits coming in from Jacksonville. Coach (Tom) Elrod was down at our school all the time. Luckily, when the defense wasn't on the field, he had to watch the offense."
Elrod pleaded the Skinner case. Grobe relented, using the final scholarship on a player whose entire offer sheet amounted to a half-scholarship from Samford, a I-AA school in Alabama. "If not," Skinner said, "I think I was going to try to go to Georgia as a regular student. I probably felt like if nobody will give me a scholarship, I don't think Mark Richt would…. I wasn't bitter. I knew that being a 6-foot quarterback that runs like he's got a piano attached to him doesn't sell itself. So, I had a feeling that I wasn't going to be highly recruited. I guess I was a little confused when we lost two games in high school and won the state championship the last two years."
He was ecstatic just to become a Wake Forest practice player. After his redshirt indoctrination, Skinner saw a window of opportunity that couldn't possibly open for a couple of years.
"I was third-string quarterback about two weeks before the season. Then, our backup quarterback, Brett Hodges, separated his shoulder in a scrimmage. By default, I got moved up to second string. Then Mauk got hurt in the third quarter of the first game. So, they had me back in the weeds at the start of the season. Yeah, I was way back in the weeds….
"I never thought two quarterbacks would get hurt within the span of two weeks and I'd be starting for an entire season. I never did, never did. I was kind of wide-eyed, to say the least. At first when that situation came up, I was like a deer in the headlights, but I was loving it."
He's now the star in the spotlight, and still loving it.
■ Lenox Rawlings can be reached at lrawlings@wsjournal.com
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