Background: A major candidate for national coach of the year received his formative training at Air Force, where he coached linebackers for Fisher DeBerry from 1984-94, a period when the Falcons went 84-50 and played in seven bowl games. He then resurrected a dead-in-the-water Ohio program that went 0-11 in 1994 and was rife with staff turmoil. By 1996 Ohio was 6-6, its first nonlosing season in 14 years. In six years at Ohio, he won 33 games, after it had won only 17 in the previous 10. At Wake Forest, which had one winning season since 1992, Grobe went 6-5 his first year in 2001, and the Demon Deacons won the Seattle Bowl in 2002.
Stat line: Wake Forest is a school-record 10-2, and 6-2 in the Atlantic Coast Conference and champion of the Atlantic Division. It’s 16th in The Associated Press poll and 17th in the BCS standings. Grobe has a career mark of 36-34.
What’s up: Forgotten nationally amid Wake’s rise is the fact Grobe built the second-smallest school in Division I-A (4,037 enrollment) with a stadium capacity of only 31,500 into a champion without his starting quarterback and tailback. He has redshirted all but nine of the 123 players he has signed, and starts 15 upperclassmen. They don’t turn the ball over or commit dumb penalties. That has kept Wake Forest close. “What’s happened is we’ve ended up in the fourth quarter with a chance (to win) a lot, and we’ve found a way to get it done,” Grobe told ESPN.com. “We’ve got a lot of fourth- and fifth-year guys.”
What’s next: Wake Forest goes after its first ACC title since 1970 when it meets Georgia Tech (9-3, 7-1), 22nd in the BCS, at 11 a.m. Saturday in Jacksonville, Fla. The winner advances to the Orange Bowl.
Henderson’s take: I don’t have a vote, but I’d probably give national coach-of-the-year honors to Arkansas’ Houston Nutt, who was on the hot seat and Saturday has a chance to win the title in the SEC, the nation’s toughest conference. But Grobe would be close. Until Grobe arrived, Wake Forest was a dead-end job. Now Grobe is being mentioned as a candidate at Alabama. “You just know he cares about you,” senior safety Patrick Ghee told ESPN.com. “It’s easy to play for someone like that, someone you respect, someone you like. When he speaks to us, it’s like a fatherly love.”
