Wake Forest Athletics
100% COTTEN
10/2/2005 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 2, 2005
If you're like me, you won't soon forget what you saw when Wake Forest beat Clemson 31-27 in Groves Stadium on the first October Saturday of 2005. But you won't remember it because of the circumstances that produced the win. The comeback. The drive. The diving catch by Kevin Marion 50 feet from his locker room that gave the Deacs the go-ahead points. The tackle by Patrick Ghee inside Wake's ten yard line as time expired on the Tigers.
You'll remember it because of Cory Randolph.
In a performance for the ages, Randolph led Wake Forest into battle with his chin up. The fifth -year senior made the 21st start of his career - but his first of the season. Yes, Deacon quarterbacks have had games with better numbers. More passing yards. More touchdowns. But given the context of Randolph's fall from grace at the end of 2004 and his inability to win his job back in spring practice or fall camp, his 222 yards passing, three touchdown passes and one touchdown run look like Hall of Fame stats. Because you have to flavor them with character. And Randolph oozed it on that night.
"My dad told me I could go two ways," Randolph told me in August after I questioned him about how it felt not to be the number one quarterback anymore. "He told me I could have a bad attitude and waste my senior year or be a man and do whatever I could to help the team win."
Oh, you're a man alright. The new Big Man On Campus.
Randolph was not happy about losing his status as Wake Forest's starting quarterback. What quarterback worth his salt would be? But he didn't bang the war drums or push the panic button. He sought fatherly advice and made a choice. He made the right one. And you'll remember him for it.
There haven't been too many Wake Forest players who have, in their careers, won back to back home games against Clemson. Randolph is one of them, and he and the others who were around for the 45-17 drubbing of the Tigers back in 2003 became the first to do it since Peahead's boys back in the 1940's. Not bad stuff for Randolph the history major.
Randolph was rated the nation's 100th-best quarterback prospect out of Columbia High School in Lake City, Florida. He redshirted in 2001. In 2002, he was named the "ACC's Best Option Quarterback" before he had ever taken a snap in a college game. He took a few in 2002 which set up the 2003 season, one in which he took nearly every snap and started each of the Deacs' twelve games as a redshirt sophomore. He started Wake's first eight games of 2004 before giving way to injury and Benjamin Mauk. Mauk kept the starting job until the Clemson game past, and Randolph spent his time as the backup at quarterback and part-time receiver.
And then the lights were turned back on him when he got the starting nod from Coach Jim Grobe after the Deacons' loss to Maryland. Randolph felt right at home.
"I'm a quarterback," he told us after the game. "It's what I do and what I came here to be."
I think we saw the real Cory Randolph against Clemson. I have no idea what he'll do the rest of the season, but I think his true colors shined through against the Tigers.
It's how I will choose to always remember Cory Randolph.
Cotten Briefs
- Chris Barclay's rush for history took another big step against Clemson. He had 105 yards to pass Michael Ramseur into second place on the all-time rushing list and stands 446 yards from eclipsing James McDougald's 3,811-yard standard
- Ryan Plackemeier's 74-yard punt against the Tigers added more to his growing list of credentials. It was the longest punt in Groves Stadium history and the second longest ever at Wake Forest
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