It’s a simple selling point that Wake Forest’s staff makes to its players about participating on special teams.

If you want to play in the NFL, you’re going to increase your value to a team by playing special teams for them. So why not get a head start and do what you can in college?

The premium example at the next level was former Deacon Ja’Sir Taylor getting the Chargers an extra possession in overtime to beat the Broncos last season. On a punt, Taylor shoved his assignment into the returner, who muffed the punt and allowed the Chargers to recover.

And that’s exactly what Ke’Shawn Williams was thinking last weekend when he forced Vanderbilt’s returner to fumble last weekend.

“I had a flashback to this clip that they showed us in the special teams meeting of Ja’Sir Taylor making the same play in the NFL,” Williams said earlier this week. “At that instant in my mind, I decided that was the play I wanted to make.”

That was the pivotal play in last weekend’s game. Brendon Harris scooping the fumble and scoring against his former team sent Wake Forest into the locker room leading by 10 instead of three.

“Key said, ‘Right when I got there, that’s all I could think about was that play,’” coach Dave Clawson said. “As a coach, that’s really encouraging that you show an example of something in an August meeting — it might have even been a spring meeting — and then in the heat of the moment, a player executes it.”

Not to get lost in the moment of one special teams play, Williams had five catches for 92 yards and a touchdown against the Commodores. He has started in the slot, with Taylor Morin shifting to an outside receiver position, and racked up 223 all-purpose yards this season (111 on four kickoff returns).

Williams is following in the footsteps of not only Wake’s lineage of star slot receivers, but also of strong special teams plays from key players.

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Here’s a primer on what you need to know for Saturday’s game:

Time: Noon.

Location: S.B. Ballard Stadium, Norfolk, Va.

TV: ESPN2.

Announcers: Roy Philpott (play-by-play), Roddy Jones (analyst), Taylor McGregor (sidelines).

Radio link: Listen to the crew that knows Wake Forest better than ESPN's crew that parachutes in for one game.

(nothing against Roddy Jones, though.)

Forecast: Sunny but breezy. Temperatures in the mid-70s, into 80s, winds around 10 mph.

Series; last meeting: Wake Forest leads 1-0; Wake Forest won 42-10 in 2021.

Records: Wake Forest 2-0; Old Dominion 1-1.

Stat to watch: 14.9.

That number might be familiar if you read the five things to know about ODU article this week.

ODU quarterback Grant Wilson leads the country with an average depth of target of 14.9 yards, per Pro Football Focus. The Fordham transfer often cuts it loose within the framework of ODU’s new offense, under coordinator Kevin Decker, and it’s come with mixed results in a limited two-game sample.

Wilson was 13-for-25 with 94 yards against Virginia Tech, and then 13-for-19 for 247 yards against Louisiana.

It’s an interesting matchup — maybe this should stand as the matchup to watch, too — for Wake’s secondary. The Deacons allowed completions of 50, 48 and 30 yards against Vanderbilt last weekend, which doesn’t leave a good taste in the mouth of a defense that entered the season focused on limited big plays that proved costly a season ago.

“We gave up five explosives on defense,” Clawson said of the Vanderbilt game. “But we made less mistakes. We’ve still got room to improve.”

For the other-side-of-the-ball comparison: Mitch Griffis is ninth in the country in average depth of target.

Matchup to watch: Wake’s pass protection vs. ODU’s pass rush.

Griffis has been sacked six times this season — only 19 teams in the country entered this week having allowed more sacks (ODU is one of those teams, having allowed eight).

In the season opener against Elon, Griffis held the ball too long for a few of those sacks — the types of sacks where the offensive line looks around surprised that the ball was never thrown. That wasn’t the case on either sack against Vanderbilt, though.

Is the remedy facing one of the three teams in the country that doesn’t have a sack? Tune in to find out!

In all seriousness, ODU hasn’t had success getting to the opposing QB this season. In addition to the zero in the sack category, the Monarchs have only registered two QB hits (per PFF).

This lines up as a game in which we’ll get a decent gauge on how long Griffis is willing to sit in a pocket and wait for routes to develop versus when he’ll scramble and improvise.

Quote of the week: “I’m a smaller guy. Don’t really look as big and very strong, but people get caught off guard by that. I use it to my advantage.” – slot receiver Ke’Shawn Williams, who's listed at 5-10, 190 pounds.

Opposing offensive player to watch: Running back Keshawn Wicks (No. 22).

When you have more yards in two games than you did in the last season, you’re going to land near the top of the scouting report.

Wicks has played a reserve role for the past two seasons and appears to be breaking out in this one. He had 83 total yards and a touchdown against Virginia Tech, and then his first 100-yard game was last weekend (103 yards on 17 carries) against Louisiana.

What might be the most-impressive part of his 103-yard performance last week was that the longest run was 15 yards. He kept the average above 5 yards per carry without any breakaway runs.

The 6-1, 194-pounder had 125 yards on 32 carries (3.9 yards/carry) last season.

Opposing defensive player to watch: Linebacker Jason Henderson (No. 42).

The term “tackling machine” gets thrown around but it genuinely applies here.

Henderson had 186 tackles last season, which was 39 more than the No. 2 player in the country. He was seven tackles shy of the FBS record for tackles in a season — and he left ODU’s game against Appalachian State in the first quarter.

The Dingmans Ferry, Penn., native was the only player in FBS last season with multiple games of at least 20 tackles and was a second-team All-America selection by most national publications.

The 6-1, 227-pounder has picked up where he left off, recording 28 tackles already this season. Seventeen of those, including 2½ TFLs, came last weekend.

Young Deacon to watch: Safety Davaughn Patterson (No. 38).

*Now* it’s time to watch Patterson, though you would have liked this to come under different circumstances.

The loss of Harris for at least a month means Wake Forest needs to call on the freshman safety for a larger role. Maybe Patterson replaces Harris in some of his special teams spots, but he’s almost certainly going to take his snaps at safety.

Patterson enrolled in January and stood out early for both his size (6-1, 214) and his acumen in lining up at a few different positions. He’s only played 14 snaps (all against Elon) this season; expect that number to rise considerably with this game.

Don’t forget about: Defensive end Jasheen Davis (No. 30).

Right. You’re not going to forget Wake’s best defensive lineman.

This is more of a “don’t forget how good he is” selection.

Per PFF, Davis has 11 QB pressures; next for the Deacons are Kevin Pointer and Bryce Ganious, with four each. Also from PFF, Davis is tied for the second-most run stops on the team with five, trailing only linebacker Jacob Roberts.

Oh, and Davis has played 106 snaps, the most of the Deacons’ defense.

Prediction: I mean … it’s interesting. More so than a few of Wake’s other G5 road trips in the last several years.

I’m most interested in seeing how Wake’s defense fares against ODU’s offense. What the Monarchs want to do doesn’t seem to fully align with the players they have (yet), so it’s not like this is some high-flying offense that’s going to score 30 points by accident.

But if the Deacons don’t defend the deep passes better than last weekend, they’re going to give up some chunk plays.

I’d still think Wake Forest has a decided advantage even if this becomes a shootout.