WINSTON-SALEM — Wake Forest sophomore running back Josh Adams will be available to play against Virginia on Saturday after missing his first game of the season against Duke last week.
Adams, the former Cary High star, sprained his left ankle in a game against Miami on Oct. 25.
Wake senior kicker Sam Swank sprained his right quadriceps on Oct. 6 and has yet to return.
Listen to Wake coach Jim Grobe talk about the kicker's progress.
Staff video by Scott Sharpe
WINSTON-SALEM — You can't play too loose around Wake Forest CB Alphonso Smith. Duke QB Thaddeus Lewis knew that before Wake beat Duke 33-30 in overtime on Saturday but Smith picked Lewis off twice, giving him two big reminders.
Smith grabbed the second in front of Duke WR Eron Riley on a play near the end zone that likely would have given Duke the victory. Smith has 19 interceptions in a Wake Forest uniform. He needs two more to pass Dre' Bly of North Carolina to rank No. 1 in ACC history.
"Honestly the win was more important," Smith said of how the Deacons ending a two-game losing streak. "The win felt better. To be the all-time interception leader is great. I appreciate this and I appreciate the opportunity Coach [Jim] Grobe and Ron Wellman have given me. I'm really blessed and I'm really fortunate."
WINSTON-SALEM — Duke coach David Cutcliffe said he knew he was going to try an onside kick in the second half at Wake Forest because he thought the Blue Devils could make something happen on the Demon Deacons.
It didn't work. Wake Forest ended up with the ball at the Duke 26, after Duke was called for interference on the play, and took a 22-20 lead at the end of the third quarter on a Shane Popham
field goal.
"I don't like digging fox holes but I thought there was something there," Cutcliffe said after the 33-30 overtime loss.
Staff video by Scott Sharpe
• First Look
• Photo gallery
• Video: Smith's OT pick
• Video: Boldin touchdown
WINSTON-SALEM — It was the kind of game Wake Forest had won many times before and the kind Duke had seen and won just a week ago.
Experience and an old Duke bugaboo won out on Saturday.
Duke got snakebit by another last-second missed field goal at the end of regulation as Wake Forest pulled out a 33-30 overtime victory over the Blue Devils in a seesaw battle at BB&T Field.
WINSTON-SALEM — So what does this say for the 4-3 Blue Devils? The game isn't on TV and the only bowl rep in town to watch Duke play Wake Forest this afternoon is the Chick-fil-A Bowl (Dec. 31), which has a spot for the ACC's No. 2 team.
Duke won't be the second choice out of the ACC even though both Duke and Wake need two more victories to become bowl eligible. Obviously Wake has more clout in bowl circles.
See video of a Wake Forest interception in OT that gave the Deacons a win over the Blue Devils. Video by staff photojournalist Scott Sharpe.
• Combined BCS rankings
• BCS rankings by winning percentage
• BCS ranking by GSR
Data from the NCAA suggests the ACC has the "student" part down in the "student-athlete" equation. The conference does a better job graduating its players than its Bowl Championship Series brethren.
• BCS rankings by winning percentage
• BCS ranking by GSR
Ranking the 66 Bowl Championship Series teams by winning percentage and graduation rate (GSR) for the past decade — then combining the two rankings (weighted evenly) into a score — helps assess which programs did best in both areas. Like golf, the lower the score, the better:
• Combined BCS rankings
• BCS ranking by GSR
The Bowl Championship Series teams, No. 1 through No. 66, by winning percentage from 1998 to 2007, the same range as the NCAA-issued report on Graduation Success Rate, which measures a program's ability to graduate players.
