Game of the Week

Imagine the simoleons you could have made if at the start of the season you took Wake Forest and Georgia Tech to meet in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game. In 105 years of football, the Demon Deacons had never won 10 games. That's all history now. Wake Forest has found its way to Jacksonville in what has to be one of the best stories of 2006. Georgia Tech lost a hard-fought opener to Notre Dame, then rolled, stumbling only at Clemson and Georgia. This one should be quite competitive, entertaining and — most important — challenging for our pigskin prophet, Mark Mathis, who has a 10-3 record. But before we get to Mark's selection, we'd like to thank reader Jim for getting us this fine Demon Deacon schedule poster. If you're a newbie around here, we reviewed 40 schedule posters in the offseason and we plan to do the same again for 2007. In other words, the season never ends in this little corner of cyberspace. It's fun to look back on these poster schedules now. A lot of promises were made; some were kept, some were broken. In Wake Forest's case, the time certainly is now. Here's the list if you want to take a trip down memory lane: East Carolina, Miami of Ohio, Missouri, Tulsa, Notre Dame, Texas Tech, Miami, Memphis, Arizona, North Carolina State, Oregon, Wyoming, Nevada, Kentucky, Clemson, Fresno State, Rice, Alabama, Oklahoma, Toledo, Vanderbilt-Tennessee, Washington State-Washington, Brigham Young-West Virginia-Northern Illinois, Oklahoma State, Northwestern, Louisiana State, UCLA, Ohio State, Mississippi State, Auburn, South Carolina, Arkansas, Florida State, Florida, Iowa State and USC. Now, let's bring on Mr. Mathis:

"Well, this is a big one! I like the coach of Georgia Tech and they have some hot cheerleaders. I used to do car commercials for a guy who played for Wake Forest and I don't like him. So I am going with Georgia Tech, 28-21. Mostly cloudy with a temperature 60 at kickoff. Go Tech!"

Ramblin Racket: The fine blog covers all things Georgia Tech, including the "World's Smallest Outdoor Cocktail Party," aka the ACC title game.

John Delong, Winston-Salem Journal: Who knew that Wake Forest offensive tackle Steve Vallos resembled Andre the Giant?

Garry Smits, Florida Times-Union: Jim Grobe took Wake Forest from a 2-9 team in 2000 to a 10-2 team in 2006.