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WINSTON-SALEM -- One of the most important elements in Wake Forest's football game at Navy won't play Saturday. Heck, he won't even be in the same area code.

"I would like to be there," Skylar Jones said, "but it's OK. I'll be here with other friends. We'll have popcorn."

Jones, a freshman from Middletown, Ohio, is the Demon Deacons' scout-team quarterback. As such, he's not on the travel squad, but his role in practice this week has required him to simulate the complex machinations of Navy's triple-option running game. The role-playing has turned him into Navy QB Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada, a job that's even harder to perform than it is to say his name.

The Midshipmen (4-2) lead America in rushing, averaging 345.5 yards per game. They do it with a mishmash of deception that often leaves defenses asking the most basic of questions: Who's got the ball?

"It's not something you're used to," said Wake defensive coordinator Dean Hood, whose bloodshot eyes and scruffy beard Thursday attested to the extra time spent on preparation. "If you're playing Florida State or N.C. State, there's a lot of carryover. With this? You take all of that and rip it up and throw it in the trash can."

It's homecoming for the Midshipmen and a nonconference test of the strangest order for Wake (4-2), which has juggled midterm exams with intense football study this week. Coach Jim Grobe smiles and accepts it, firmly aware he was due.

"Know what this is?" he asked Thursday. "It's payback."

Specifically, it's football retribution for Grobe's first two years as a head coach, when he installed the same offense at Ohio University and turned the Bobcats from inept to respectable by the second season. He unleashed this thing on the rest of the Mid-American Conference after hiring one of its architects, Mike Sewak, as coordinator. Sewak and Paul Johnson had put the offense in place at Hawaii in the 1980s and have run it at various schools since.

Johnson is now the coach at Navy, which has gone 39-17 in the past 41/2 seasons. The offense is in the hands of Kaheaku-Enhada, a 5-foot-11 Hawaiian who has to make more decisions while throwing fewer passes than almost any other QB in the country.

It will work this way: Wake will establish the defensive formation it thinks will be the most versatile on a given play. Kaheaku-Enhada, in quick consultation with Johnson and others, might hand immediately to the fullback on a dive play. That's the first option. The next alternative is to keep the ball and head down the line, whereupon the quarterback addresses the other possibilities: turn upfield or pitch to the trailing tailback. Or perhaps do both.

"You need Mapquest to find the ball," said one longtime observer of Johnson's offense.

In high school, Jones ran a spread offense that included the option, so he was the obvious choice to mimic the Midshipmen. In practice Tuesday and Wednesday, he got signals from coaches and ran plays without the knowledge of the defense. But that was only after considerable film analysis.

"It gets hard," Jones said. "You really have to study it. You fake the dive to the fullback. You read the pitch keys. Lots of things."

And just when you think you have it figured out, the Midshipmen can sucker you and hit you with a pass. Navy is last in passing yards (109.7) because it doesn't throw often. The more revealing fact is that the Middies are fourth in the land in yards per pass attempt at 9.5 -- just ahead of such airborne teams as Oklahoma, Louisville, Texas Tech and Hawaii. They scored a touchdown in overtime in last week's victory at Pittsburgh with a shocking deep ball on first-and-10 from the 25.

"They aren't throwing the ball to gain five yards," Hood said. "They're trying to cut your throat out."

Hood had high praise for Jones' work, which the Deacons hope will provide a decent simulation of what they'll see Saturday at Annapolis, Md. The problem is that the offense is a well-choreographed effort that is best studied with two weeks to prepare, not one.

"You have to have your eyes on the right spot," Hood said. "That's the nature of the beast."

Contact Rob Daniels at 373-7028 or rdaniels@news-record.com