WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Kevin Cosgrove spoke with reporters under a blazing sun outside the locker room Saturday afternoon.

As if Nebraska's defensive coordinator wasn't already feeling enough heat.

Cosgrove never sought shade. With beads of sweat rolling down his face, he calmly explained his team's problems — and ultimate solution — in defending Wake Forest's bread-and-butter play on this day.

The end-around.

"It's a multiple play," Cosgrove said after Nebraska's 20-17 victory. "It's a naked in the pass game, it's a zone cutback, and it's a reverse, so you have to defend all three plays.

"They do a great job of executing."

Too great of job, in fact, for the liking of many arm-chair coordinators.

Using mostly the speedy wide receiver Kenny Moore, the Demon Deacons gouged Nebraska time after time on the end-around.

Finally, Cosgrove did something he didn't want to do, but knew he had to. He rolled up, or "see-sawed" his safeties, as he explained it.

That adjustment, though, didn't occur until the third quarter — after Wake Forest had successfully run the play twice on its opening drive of the second half.

Moore, who finished with eight carries for 116 yards, had a 38-yard gain on the play, setting up Wake Forest first-and-goal at the Nebraska 9.

He scored on the same play on third-and-goal from the 5.

Cosgrove didn't make the adjustment with the safeties earlier, he said, because he feared it'd leave the Husker vulnerable up the middle.

"They motion, they stop 'em, and if you start running the safeties over, all of the sudden they run the cutback play," Cosgrove said, "and they get you outnumbered that way."

But after Moore gained 34 yards on Wake Forest's next play on the end-around, Nebraska adjusted, and with fair results. Safety Larry Asante, who led the Huskers with nine tackles, dragged down Kevin Marion for a 1-yard gain on the end- around.

“They were out-leveraging us,” Asante said in describing Nebraska’s problems with the play. “Normally, the safety coming with the motion â€- they were kind of beating us to the punch.”

The final time Wake Forest turned to the play, Steve Octavien tackled Moore for a 3-yard loss.

"I had to shoot the 'B' gap harder, stuff like that," Octavien said, taking blame for some of the earlier long runs. "That was the main problem. We finally got that done."

Still, Wake Forest amassed 236 rushing yards on 54 attempts. That's coming a week after the Demon Deacons ran only 24 times for 2 yards at Boston College.

"It wasn't their normal run stuff that got to us," Nebraska linebacker Bo Ruud said. "It was that end- around stuff. That's something that not many teams do often or do nearly as well as Wake Forest."

Ruud said the Huskers prepared for the end-around but were still surprised Wake Forest ran as much as it did.

Quarterback Brett Hodges, playing in place of injured Riley Skinner, completed 12 of 24 passes for 140 yards.

"We were expecting a lot more throwing, to tell you the truth," Ruud said, "because they showed so much pass game."

Wake Forest burned Nebraska deep once, on a 61-yard completion to Marion, and had Marion behind the defense on an earlier deep pass that grazed his fingertips.

But the Blackshirts also had two interceptions — one by Corey McKeon in the first quarter, the other a game-saving grab by Zackary Bowman in the end zone in the fourth quarter.

Bowman’s play came after Wake Forest had taken over at the Nebraska 10-yard line following a Sam Keller interception. It was the second time the Huskers answered with a key “sudden-change” stop —  a defensive series after a turnover in Nebraska territory.

Sophomore nose tackle Ndamukong Suh came up huge in both situations. Wake Forest, after recovering a Keller fumbled snap at the Nebraska 38, drove to the 2 and had first-and-goal. But Suh wrapped up Kevin Harris for a 3-yard loss, and Wake Forest eventually settled for a field goal.

The play before Bowman's interception, Suh tackled Micah Andrews for a 6-yard loss on second-and-goal.

Cosgrove also said he was “100 percent” in favor of head coach Bill Callahan going for it on fourth-and-2 from the Wake Forest 35 â€- with nearly 2 minutes remaining and Nebraska ahead by three points.

Nebraska didn't convert, putting the Blackshirts on the field one last time. They answered, forcing four straight incompletions after Wake Forest gained one first down on a penalty.

"The time on the clock, I knew they had to throw the football," Cosgrove said. "When we had to stop 'em, we did."

Reach Brian Rosenthal at 473-7436 or brosenthal@journalstar.com.