"Foe"Rensics: Wake Forest

Hello. This is "Foe"Rensics, where we pretend we have a good football team, and make jokes so people think these are tears of laughter. Some weeks I'm more motivated to write these than others and I think you can guess what kind of week this is.

Is he happy or sad? Seriously, I have no idea.

1. Before you get to this week, how did we do last week?

A. Well, as one would expect from a Virginia Tech-Duke game, it was a battle of the ranked Coastal Division leader against the basement dwellers and, per usual, Virginia Tech won.

2. Wait, WHAT?!

A. Oh HELL YEAH! Duke ain't ranked no more, we doubled the number of sacks Duke allowed on the season and recovered the most awesomest fumble since the "Give it to me, Roscoe!" strip. That may have been the ugliest win I've seen from us in a loooooooong time, but we actually had some running lanes open up, J.C. Coleman (?!) looked like a man possessed running the ball. Which is good, because yet another running back is done for year¹. At this point, do they actually have enough room in the training room to accommodate all of our injured players? Did they have to build a special annex just for our running backs?

3. Okay. Who's the next?

A. It's known today as Wake Forest University. It was originally founded in the middle of a forest, and it wasn't even a university. It was just a bunch of hermits that hated people and wanted to spend their lives eating acorn paste and not showering. It turns out that the forest was filled with man-eating trolls, requiring ever vigilance from the hermits. The forest derived its name from the greeting the hermits would exchange in the rare cases they crossed paths, "Stay woke".

Later, when the trolls grew too numerous and the hermits were almost wiped out, they hired local entrepreneur R.J. Reynolds to come in and thin the herd. Reynolds discovered that, when the dead trolls were ground to a powder and added to cigarettes, they became incredibly addictive and thus saved his fledgeling tobacco business. In order to secure access to the troll powder, R.J. bought the entire forest and removed the hermits en masse to Winston-Salem. The hermits, still wanting to keep people away from them, started the Wake Forest Manual Labor Institute and charged outrageously high tuition to do religious-themed farm work. They've largely succeeded to this day.

These four comprise the entire graduating class of 2013

4. Oh. So then how do they football, then?

A. Great question. It turns out that R.J. Reynolds just gets some local high school football players addicted to their troll smokes, then pays them in cigarettes to play football at Wake after they graduate. While playing non-students and paying them in tobacco is a serious violation of NCAA rules, investigators have been so busy dealing with UNC's ongoing academic stupidity that they haven't had time to notice. In addition, Wake football's normal ceiling of "Not Mediocre" has generally kept their profile low enough to avoid trouble.

5. Wow. Should we report them?

A. No, it's almost cute. That'd be like reporting the Little Engine That Could for using Creatine.

6. So...they're not good?

A. It's all relative. Are WE good²? I mean, I don't think we'd get pwned by NC State 42-13 or lose to Louisiana-Monroe, but this team is entirely unpredictable.

7. Wait, Louisiana MONROE? Is that the school that hired Rickey Bustle away?

A. Nope, that was Louisiana-Lafayette. But I think losing to either one of them indicates a distinct lack of goodness in your football team.

8. Yeah, that's like losing to Templ...nevermind. What about a mascot? Do they have one?

A. Yes. Again, going for the "scare away potential students" angle, they were originally known as the Baptists. In an effort to be more intimidating at mascotting and oxymoronic, they modified it slightly to Deacon and added Demon at the front. To top it all off, they parade out an old geezer wearing a top hat and bow tie, who I guess is supposed to scare you that he might sit there and tell you stories about the Dewey Decimal System, scold you about pulling your pants up or ask you to rub the discolored growth on his foot for a shiny new quarter. Honestly, if they were really going for religious and scary why couldn't they be the Spanish Inquisitors or Witch Burning Puritans?

Nobody would've expected that

9. Weird. Any other traditions we should be aware of?

Besides losing? Not that I could find. They claim a rivalry against all the other North Carolina schools but barely win a third of those games. The only other item of note is that they are former employer of the last coach at both LOLUVA and Virginia Tech, with Bill Dooley coming out of retirement to succeed "Don't Fire" Al Groh. Currently, they are coached by Dave Clawson, who honestly probably had a better gig at Bowling Green. Historically, the Deacs have not been the worst team in the ACC thanks to the massive ineptitude of LOLUVA. They've won two ACC football championships, both outright, which remains exactly two more outright championships than LOLUVA.

10. Do they have players on their football team?

A. Yes. This being the private school arms race that is the ACC, they feature a pair of Hunters as well as brothers Maddox and Griffin Stamey. They'll also trot out junior linebacker Britt Cherry, who accidentally registered for classes using his porn name, and senior running back Orville Reynolds, who transferred to Wake from the year 1908.

11. Any Fullers?

A. Sorry, the Stameys where the best they could come up with. And I'm sure when it's all said and done, there will just as many Fuller brothers in the Wake Forest Hall of Fame as Stameys.

12. Any good alumni?

A. I got super excited when I found that actor Lee Norris graduated from there, but it turns out he's nothing to do with Chuck, he just has a history of playing annoying characters on bad TV shows like Boy Meets World. On the other hand, while she didn't go there, poet Maya Angelou taught there and they produced all around good guy basketball players like Tim Duncan and Chris Paul. For me, however, nothing will ever redeem Wake for producing Joe Lawson, the co-creator of the Geico Cavemen.

Those dudes did not age well.

13. What if I'm hungry in Winston Salem?

A. I'll be honest, the only time I've been to Winston-Salem is driving through on my way back to Blacksburg from the Outer Banks to watch us beat the snot out of LOLUVA. I did not eat there, but people do that every day and some choose to even write Google reviews of restaurants that are there! And according to Google, you should eat at Milner's American Southern. It gets generally good reviews, but I can't help but notice A Google User's review:

My wife and I had diner her one night. Aside from sitting in the laps of the people next to us, the diner was delicious. I really can't say enough about the savory meal, mmm tasty. The service, however, is what killed it. Just awful! The wait staff didn't know the difference between a pinot noir and a pine nut. I suppose had I had a more than fleeting opportunity to speak to someone I may have been more impressed with their possibly evasive knowledge (though not likely). Plenty of other eateries to choose from, won't be back.

Let's break this down. You can excuse poor typing on accident, but the first two sentences strongly convey that our much-suffering reviewer here does not realize there is a second 'n' in "dinner"³ or actually managed to order a casual eating establishment, in which case I understand why he's not in a good mood. However, on the very next line, he completely condescends the wait staff for being unable to distinguish "between a pinot noir and a pine nut." and then refers to that as "evasive knowledge", which...

Although one could argue that accurately defines what these articles encompass

14. So the food is good and a dude that sounds like a LOLUVA alum doesn't like their wait staff? Why do I feel like I'd like it?

A. I hear you, boss.

15. What about barbecue?

A. Winston-Salem IS in the greatest barbecue state in the union, although it unfortunately falls in the side that doesn't realize tomatoes are the work of the devil. If you are there, it seems that heading over to Prissy Polly's is the move. Let's hear from Christopher Myrick:

I ordered the Cracker Meal Catfish Plate and is was awful. Maybe you should stick to Barbecue.

YA THINK? Christopher, do you go to Chinese buffets and bitch about the pizza they have there? The rest of the reviews were from people smart enough to order barbecue at the barbecue restaurant, and were extremely positive, particularly about the hush puppies.

The last thing I want to point out is that Polly's offers not only Lexington style but Eastern style sauce as well. They are truly reaching across the I-95 corridor to bridge the sauce aisle in NC, and bring everyone back together to remember the most important thing about barbecue. And that is barbecue is made from pigs.

16. Amen, brother. Tell me about our FAINTs.

A. Keeping with our tradition, there were no FAINTs because the one thing ACC quarterbacks can all agree on is don't throw at a Fuller. However, Deon Clarke and Derek Di Nardo added a CAINT and a DNAINT⁴.

Also of note, our record has now improved to 5-2 when Michael Brewer throws an interception, while we remain winless when the opposition remains pickless. I'M JUST SAYING.

17. So if our linebackers were busy intercepting passes, were they able to effectively support RAGE?

A. That's right, after a brief hiatus, RAGE MATCH is back. And in what should be a surprise to no one, Dadi once again reminded everyone why he scares the hell out of opposing quarterbacks and inspires so much love from Hokie fans, with 3 TFLs, including 2 sacks and an additional FIVE QB hurries. I think the Dadi GIF from GIFTORY effectively captures his day. But at this point, I have to recognize that Andrew Motuapuaka has stepped in and done a phenomenal job this year, which was caught with this beautiful shot.

EAT THE GRASS. EAT IT, SON! HAHAHAHA

18. Excellent. Can't believe that dude's just a freshman. Finally, what will you be watching for this week?

A. Considering the stadiums were originally identical, when you walk into the Grove, don't instinctively go to where your Lane Stadium seats are. Although they'll probably be empty anyway:

• For Brewer to get the pick out of the way early so we can win;
• Wake Forest is literally the worst team in Division I-A at offense. Let's make them worse;
• RILEY SKINNER AIN'T WALKING THROUGH THAT DOOR;
• I've been trying to decide, but I'm pretty sure you'd classify Frank's latest dance move as a Robot version of the Monkey Dance;
• Through 10 games, we've had six different players lead the team in rushing yards⁵. Let's go for seven!

Let's finish a sweep of the (ACC) North Carolina teams this weekend!

¹Pour one out for Juice
²Don't answer that
³Maybe the N on his keyboard is broken
⁴It's pronounced the same as the Dnieper River
⁵Shai (2x), Juice (4x), Deon Newsome, Trey Edmunds, Sam Rogers, J.C. Coleman