Notre Dame Opponent Preview | Wake Forest
After kicking off the season with Duke, Notre Dame will have an open week if they can’t find an opponent to replace Western Michigan. That means they’ll likely have extra time to learn after the first game before they take on Wake Forest in Charlotte.
Coming in at 81st in the SP+ preseason rankings, Wake is the second lowest rated team the Irish will face in 2020. They have a couple of talented individuals who could start for any team in the ACC, but the overall talent isn’t at a point where they should be better than a .500 team this fall, especially without some easy non-conference games.
Dave Clawson has done a great job building them up to the point where they finished with a winning record the last four seasons, but they’ll need a lot of breaks to go their way to beat Notre Dame.
Offense
They’re ranked 99th on offense in SP+ after losing eight starters, including quarterback Jamie Newman as a graduate transfer. He brought added value as a dual-threat and they won’t have that same presence with Sam Hartman at quarterback.
Notre Dame fans will remember Hartman as the true freshman who started in 2018. The Irish defense pounded him into submission that day and he eventually left the game with an injury. He’s bigger now, but was still inconsistent with his accuracy last season.
The good news for Wake is that Hartman will have big play receiver Sage Surratt to throw to. This is precisely why Notre Dame brought in a player like Nick McCloud to play the boundary. Surratt is big (6’3” 215) and put up over 1,000 yards receiving in the nine games he played before being injured. They were a different offense with him on the field.
They have Donovan Greene as a rising star opposite Surratt and the matchup should be a good early test for Notre Dame’s young secondary.
Two starters are back up front, but even a veteran group would have issues with Notre Dame’s defensive line. They struggled to run the football in most games last season and without Newman, they are likely going to struggle more.
That freeze they run with their RPOs is always difficult to deal with, but Clark Lea had a great answer for it in 2018. He’ll be ready again and Wake may struggle to put up points.
X-factor - Surratt
He was fifth in the country in receiving yards per game and should be a high pick in the next NFL Draft.
Wild card - Hartman
He took advantage of his opportunities last year putting up big numbers against Florida State and Syracuse. Wake will need him to play close to that level every week for them to make a leap on offense. It is his third year in the system, though, and that is definitely noteworthy because the decision-making with those RPOs is not easy to master without much experience running it.
Defense
Wake has not been good on defense since Mike Elko and Clark Lea left the staff. They dropped from good to average to bad the last two seasons. This season they have the talent to at least get back to average and are projected 60th in SP+.
The front seven is the strength of the defense with several starters returning, led by defensive end Carlos Basham Jr. He put up double digit sacks last season and had 18 tackles for loss.
The defense was 28th in stuff rate (tackles on runs at or behind the line of scrimmage) and they finished with 31 sacks overall. The secondary is going to be a question mark for them.
Though they have the potential to be really strong at safety, they lose both starting corners. Essang Bassey in particular played a lot of great football for them. They need some people to step up because even with those corners they were 88th in completions of 20 yards or more against their defense.
X-factor - Basham Jr.
A force for them last season, he’s a top-five NFL prospect at his position with a relentless motor.
Wild card - Nasir Greer
They need more elite players to compete with the top teams in the ACC and Greer showed flashes of being one. He had three forced fumbles last season and eight total Havoc plays.
Wake will be counting on him to help out those new corners.
Overview
Wake will present some challenges with Basham being an elite edge defender and their receivers testing Notre Dame’s secondary deep, but they’ll need their best players to play exceptionally well and more to beat the Irish.
They gave up way too many tackles for loss last season and are going to give up a number of them again to Notre Dame. They need to keep the chains moving and hold on to the ball for as many plays as possible to win and that will be tough if the Irish put up 10 tackles for loss like they did against Wake in 2018.
We should get a good look at how Notre Dame’s tackles will handle some of the best pass rushers in the conference after seeing them play against Basham. We should also get an idea of how good the corners can be if they can handle Surratt and Greene. We probably won’t see a close game, although Wake is a team that never quits under Dave Clawson.