'Typical Alphonso'

Coach Jim Grobe of Wake Forest looked across BB&T Field on Sept. 6 to see Alphonso Smith passing the time with opposing coach Houston Nutt of Mississippi.

Play had stopped while the medical staff attended to an injured player, so the conversation went beyond a simple greeting.

"It's like they're old teammates or something," Grobe said. "I just thought it was typical Alphonso. He likes people and enjoys people.

"My biggest concern was I didn't know what he was saying to Coach Nutt."

Three months later, Smith detailed the back and forth.

"I was telling Houston, ‘Why are you bringing all that goofy offense into our stadium?'" Smith recalled. "He was saying, ‘We're coming at you No. 2.'

"So this is what I said to him. I said, ‘Well if that's your game plan, you won't be at Ole Miss too long.'

"He just laughed at me."

Informed of Smith's braggadocio, Grobe could do little but shake his head. Again.

"That sounds like something Alphonso would say," Grobe said.

When Wake Forest plays Navy in Saturday's EagleBank Bowl in Washington, D.C., Deacons fans might want to take one more good, long look at Alphonso Smith, a 5-9, 190-pound senior who will be playing his final game of college football. They'll never see another like him.

They might see another Wake Forest cornerback as good, although that's not a given. Five organizations named Smith a first-team All-America, including The Associated Press. He was one of five finalists for the Bronco Nagurski Award as the nation's best defensive player, and he's tied with Dre' Bly, the former North Carolina star, for most interceptions (20) by an ACC player.

But when the history of Deacons football is recounted in years to come, there will be room for only one Alphonso Smith, the kid from Pahokee, Fla., whose boundless love for life and audacious opinion of his abilities are exceeded only by his ability to back up the all-too-often outlandish smack he has talked.

Teammate Matt Robinson, who has one game left in his sixth and final season, remembers the day Smith arrived at Wake Forest. And he remembers he had no idea how to take his new teammate.

"He was really cocky," Robinson said. "And I said, ‘If this guy is half as good as he talks about, we're going to be in good shape around here.'

"And the good thing is, he really proved he was probably better than he thought. That guy right there, he has won a lot of games. He has made my career here a lot better."

Late addition

Smith, who originally committed to Pittsburgh before signing with Wake Forest at the 11th hour, arrived with two others from Pahokee -- wide receiver D.J. Boldin and defensive end Antonio Wilson. Eric King, a cornerback with the Tennessee Titans now in his fourth NFL season, was then the senior star at Smith's position, so Smith asked King who the team's best receiver was.

King said senior Jason Anderson, who had 44 catches for 751 yards and six touchdowns the season before.

Smith replied: "And I said, ‘Really? Is he really that good? When are we going to do one-on-one?' They said, ‘Next week. He'll be here next week.'

"So when I first saw him I said, ‘All right.' He was the first guy to start one-on-one. E. King was trying to go at Jason Anderson. I was like, ‘Naw, let me get him.'

"I got up on him and pressed him the first time. I broke up the pass. And I said, ‘You mean to tell me this is the best you have?'

"So it started from there. I know I got in three fights that year, on the practice field of course. I thought it was fun."

Grobe recognizes that Smith is an acquired taste. But he maintains that those who see him only as a self-promoting braggart don't really know what makes Smith the person he is.

What can one do with a person who, according to his playing partner, shot over 100 on a par-3 golf course only to walk off the 18th green declaring, ‘If I really took up this sport, I'd be better than Tiger Woods?"

You don't laugh at him, Grobe said. You laugh with him.

"I think when you realize he's not being serious, he's just being playful, then you enjoy it," Grobe said. "At first it probably puts you off because you think, ‘This guy is too cocky. He's too arrogant.' But then you find out the guy just has a genuine love for life and love for the game.

"At times, of course, when he was younger, the playfulness was a problem. It hurt his play on the field. Now I think he's got a little better gauge on when to have fun and when to be serious."

Not always a star

Grobe remembers what many have forgotten, that Smith did not start the final 11 games of Wake Forest's greatest season -- the 2006 season when the Deacons won the ACC championship and played in the Orange Bowl. Smith was burned so often and so badly in the second game against Duke that he admits he was crying on the sideline.

After another poor performance the next week at Connecticut, Smith was replaced by Kevin Patterson. Smith played enough to tie Aaron Curry for the team lead with 8.5 tackles for losses, also had four sacks and three interceptions and broke up eight passes. But he didn't start another game until the 2007 opener at Boston College.

The recollections of Grobe and Smith differ on why Smith was bounced from the starting lineup.

Grobe said that Smith simply wasn't playing the defense the way it was designed to be played.

"You make those freshman All-American teams, and you think you're too cool for school," Grobe said. "You're walking around patting yourself on the back all the time, and everybody else is, too. That's a bad combination.

"He really didn't play our defense that sophomore year. He was out there doing his own thing. He was trying to jump routes and guess what the route was going to be. He was all into himself trying to make plays."

Smith said the demotion came when he was admonished by Dean Hood, then the defensive coordinator, for allowing talent to go to waste.

"No, no it wasn't because I was taking chances," Smith said. "I was doing the same thing my freshman year.

"I can tell you that conversation between Coach Hood and me, and this is why I respect him. Out of anyone I've ever met at Wake Forest, he is probably the most genuine guy."

Smith said that in Wake Forest's 2006 opener "my footwork was terrible, and my eyes were in the wrong place. I just didn't play well. I was playing around in the weight room and not coming in and watching film like I usually do. He looked at me and said, ‘You know what, it's guys like you that upset me, because God has given you so much talent and He has blessed you so much, and you're not matching that with hard work and dedication.

"He said, ‘From this day on you're not going to start another game at Wake Forest until you do that. As a matter of fact, you're the fourth cornerback. I don't care how good you are. You're the fourth corner.'"

Next step: the NFL

It's conceivable that Smith will be the first cornerback chosen in the NFL Draft in April. Analyst Mel Kiper of ESPN.com projects him as the second, behind Malcolm Jenkins of Ohio State, and as the 23rd pick overall.

Smith, however, is expected to be the second Wake Forest player chosen. Kiper projects linebacker Curry as the No. 1 pick in the draft.

Smith scoffs at the notion that he's too small for the NFL, saying he can name 10 cornerbacks 5-9 or shorter who have had All-Pro careers. He certainly doesn't plan to lose his confidence between Wake Forest and whatever training camp he enters, and he doesn't plan to back down from anybody.

He said he recently almost came to practice-field blows with Boldin, whom he has known since he was 7.

"It's nothing personal," Smith said. "It's just I'm trying to get better and you're trying to get better, I'm competitive and you're competitive and I want to win.

"I'll go to an NFL training camp with the same mentality. I don't care who you are. You can be Deion Sanders on one side and Darrell Green on the other side, and somebody's got to move over because I'm trying to get in."

Wherever he goes and however he plays, Smith won't soon be forgotten at Wake Forest. His accomplishments will transcend the remarkable plays he has made, beginning but not ending with the 100-yard interception return for a touchdown that turned around the game against Maryland and, with it, the whole 2007 season.

What people will remember is that Wake Forest became a different program the day Smith arrived.

"He's been great around here," Robinson said. "And he shows every game day.

"He's got that look in his eye, and he's got that swagger. That's what you need. With Florida State and Miami, you always talk about their swagger. And there's got to be somebody that starts that.

"He was one of those guys for us."

■ Dan Collins can be reached at 727-7323 or at dcollins@wsjournal.com.