Andrew Luck and Tavita Pritchard return to the site of one of their toughest collegiate defeats when Stanford visits Wake Forest for just the second time, this one in a key Atlantic Coast Conference showdown Saturday afternoon in Winston-Salem, N.C.
With Luck, now Stanford’s football general manager, at quarterback, and Pritchard, currently the Cardinal head coach, serving as the backup, a Stanford team that would beat three nationally ranked opponents in 2009 saw a 17-3 lead evaporate into a 24-17 nonconference stunner in its first — and until Saturday, only — visit to Wake Forest.
The programs have since split decisions, each on Stanford’s field, beginning with a 68-24 romp by the revenge-minded Cardinal in 2010. Luck began a bid for the Heisman Trophy (he would finish second to Auburn’s Cam Newton) with four touchdown passes.
The Demon Deacons earned a measure of revenge themselves when they turned the tables on the Cardinal the last time the teams met, getting a field goal from Matthew Dennis with 1:48 remaining for a 27-24 victory in the schools’ first meeting as ACC opponents.
On Saturday, both teams will be in momentum-building mode. Wake Forest (3-1, 1-1 ACC) is coming off a 30-27 win at then-No. 16 Louisville, while more than 2,000 miles away, Stanford (2-2, 1-2 ACC) posted its best effort of the season in a 34-27 home win over Georgia Tech.
Wideout Carlos Hernandez was the Demon Deacons’ star of the game, hauling in nine passes for 194 yards, including a 77-yard score. His coach, Jake Dickert, looks forward to the challenge of Stanford’s predominantly man-to-man coverage this week.
“We’ve got to find ways to move Carlos around and find opportunities to get him open,” Dickert told reporters this week. “(Quarterback Gio Lopez) and him got to be in sync this week.”
Lopez had 225 passing yards against Louisville, paling in comparison to what Stanford’s Davis Warren put up against Georgia Tech. The Michigan transfer had never had more than 204 passing yards in a game before he went for 310 in an opening win over Hawaii, a career-high he topped with 396 yards last week.
While applauding that effort, Pritchard assured reporters this week the Cardinal will need more than the 86 yards they had on the ground in order to have sustained success in the ACC.
“It’s not necessarily, hey, we’ve got to have equal number of yards running and throwing, or we have to have equal number of attempts,” Pritchard said. “It’s more you have to have the threat of running the football and throwing it. That’s the place we’ve got to get to.”
