Deacons' Price putting all the pieces together

The 10 good pounds quarterback Tanner Price has gained since his freshman season have served him in good stead.

"It makes it not as painful when you're getting hit by bigger guys with a little bit more muscle on you," Price explained.

But there's another, better kind of added weight Price is carrying into the final game of his sophomore season at Wake Forest, the Music City Bowl matchup against Mississippi State on Friday in Nashville, Tenn. (6:40 p.m., ESPN Ch. 33).

No scales are needed to gauge its heft, for it can be measured only in the eyes of his coaches and teammates.

Others know it best by a different term: gravitas.

Receiver Chris Givens said he has seen the gravitas grow in Price by leaps and bounds.

"The most I've seen from him has been his leadership skills," Givens said. "He's starting to become more vocal and just step up and be harder on us because he expects us to work as hard as he does.

"When you have a quarterback who's not afraid to get on you for messing up — and at the same time will get on himself for throwing a bad ball — you really can't ask for anything more because he's just being a selfless leader.

"And that's the best type of leader to have at quarterback."

Another receiver, Michael Campanaro, said that Price always has been a straightforward, stand-up teammate who is easy to be around.

Campanaro, however, said it's not always as easy as it was last season, when Price's needle wasn't quite as sharp as it is now, 21 starts into his career.

"I think a lot of fans don't see it, and a lot of people (in the media) don't see it," Campanaro said. "But off the field, with Tanner, when you're just hanging out with him, that's when he will talk to you and get on you.

"Behind the scenes with players, especially myself, he's always talking to me and pushing me. He gets on me a good amount about a lot of different things.

"He'll dish it out."

Price said his newfound confidence and assertiveness are easy to explain. Last season, he was a first-year freshman still trying to get his feet on the ground.

This season, he's not.

Instead, he's an experienced quarterback ranked third in the ACC with 233.6 passing yards a game and fifth with a quarterback-efficiency rating of 137.9.

"I think it's a little bit of the process," Price said. "But coming into this year, I really still hadn't proven myself as a quarterback. And once you start to prove to your teammates that you can play and you can be a good leader, you become more comfortable in that position, and you become more vocal.

"The biggest thing was just proving I could fill those shoes."

Through 12 starts, Price has completed 229 of 376 passes (61 percent) for 2,803 yards and 20 touchdowns. He has thrown only six interceptions, the last against Notre Dame, 99 passes ago.

His passing yards for the season are the second-most in school history, surpassed only by the 3,160 yards Riley Skinner accumulated in 2009. And he still has a game to play before he's halfway through his college career.

"We've always had confidence in Tanner, all the staff, especially Tom Elrod," said coach Jim Grobe, referring to the assistant coach who works daily with the quarterbacks. "But you know we didn't play very good last year, and everybody's wondering, 'Is this kid for real?'

"The coaches keep talking about how good Tanner Price is, and everybody is saying, 'Now wait a minute. They didn't win any games last year.' So I think it's a little bit of validation for him that he's good enough to win and help us go to bowl games."

Grobe said the next step is to get 12 or 13 good games from Price, and not just eight, nine or 10. And as a quarterback even harder on himself than he is on his teammates, Price knows a player is only as good as his last game.

Price, to that end, is not the quarterback he wants to be. In his last game, a 41-7 loss to Vanderbilt, he failed to complete half of his passes for the first time all season.

He finished with 16 completions on 34 attempts for 157 yards.

"Up until the Vanderbilt game, I was satisfied," Price said of his sophomore season. "Going 47 percent wasn't something I ever want to do.

"You've just got to keep working on it, and I think (the Music City Bowl) will be a much different game."