Steamin' Deamons!

Wake Forest is going to play in the Orange Bowl.

Take a second and let that sink in.

Wake Forest is going to play in the Orange Bowl.

At the beginning of the season no one in the country, not Kirk Herbstriet, not Mark May, not Lou Holtz (probably because he didn’t coach there) picked Wake Forest to win the ACC and go to a BCS bowl.

Miami, Virginia Tech, Clemson. Those were the teams that were most often mentioned to go to the Orange Bowl and in some cases even challenge for a NCAA Football championship.

But Jim Grobe took Wake Forest, the forgotten football figure in the state of North Carolina, from worst to first in a major BCS conference.

Now listen, the ACC was as down this year as any season in recent memory. It was very bad. But don’t let that take anything away from what Wake Forest did. They can’t help the strength of the conference. All they did was line up, play, and beat just about everyone on their schedule. It wasn’t always pretty.

That ACC Championship game was painful. But there are no style points in football. Wait…you know what I mean.

Oh yeah, Wake was without its starting quarterback and running back. That just makes the job Grobe did that much more impressive.

And for his efforts Grobe got exactly what he deserved, the AP Coach of the Year. There were plenty of worthy coaches this year including Greg Schiano at Rutgers, Bob Stoops at Oklahoma and don’t forget about Jim Tressel at Ohio State. But these guys have nothing on what Grobe did.

Congratulations to Coach Grobe and the Deamon Deacons of Wake Forest.

Watching them isn’t always pretty, unless you like winning.