Wake Forest Football Has a New Ceiling

Could this be the start of a new standard at Wake Forest? Jake Dickert was already the winningest first-year coach at Wake. Now, with Friday’s 43-29 win over Mississippi State in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl in Charlotte, NC, Wake has also achieved its fourth season of 9+ wins in school history.

After the game and getting the vat of Duke’s mayo dumped over him, Dickert said, “I’m really proud of our seniors. I’m really proud of the youth of our football team.”

Getting There the Hard Way

That’s not to say it was easy. Very little with Wake has been easy this season. The offense went through droughts. The Demon Deacons committed nine penalties for 76 yards, something that plagued them throughout the season. But they had enough offense when it counted in the second half.

Mississippi State may have come into the game 5-7 and earned a bowl invitation when other schools bowed out of postseason play. And the Bulldogs racked up a lot of early yards. But while Wake Forest struggled with yards on offense early, the offense got something MSU did not: big plays that resulted in points. While MSU was getting yards, Wake was getting scores, due in no small part to the Demon Deacons’ defense holding firm in the clutch against the Bulldogs’ offense.

Yards vs. Points

On the first play of the game, MSU quarterback Kamario Taylor completed a 51-yard pass to Brenen Thompson, who had beaten Travon West by a couple of steps. It got the ball down to the Wake Forest 25-yard line. But the drive stalled out just as quickly as it started, and MSU had to settle for a 33-yard Kyle Ferrie field goal for the 3-0 early lead.

Wake responded without the offense even having to take the field. Koredell Bartley, who was returning kicks in place of Chris Barnes (transfer portal), returned the kickoff 100 yards for the score. Wake converted on the two-point conversion for the 8-3 first-quarter lead.

Taylor put up another 42 yards of offense on the next MSU drive, but again the Bulldogs stalled out and had to settle for a 50-yard field goal by Ferrie for an 8-6 score.

Wake answered on the next drive, going 75 yards on just nine plays.  Quarterback Robby Ashford, who was wildly inconsistent in the first half, threw a jump pass from the 14-yard line between two defenders on the left side of the end zone, where Kamrean Johnson made an impressive catch for the score and the 15-6 lead.

MSU added a second-quarter 23-yard field goal from Ferrie for the 15-9 halftime lead. And while Wake had a slim lead at the half, there was not a lot of upside for the Demon Deacons. Mississippi State had outgained Wake 229 yards to 160. The Bulldogs had run 41 plays to 30 for the Demon Deacons. Ashford was eight of 19 passing for 101 yards, a touchdown, and an interception. Meanwhile, Taylor had 147 yards passing and another 51 rushing.

“Just like our whole season, this game wasn’t pretty,” Dickert said after the game. “There were highs and lows. Sometimes we shoot ourselves in the foot. But our guys are really resilient.”

Ashford Takes Over in Second Half.

That came through in the second half, especially with Ashford. He engineered four touchdown drives in the second half and finished the game with 303 passing yards and three throwing touchdowns to go with 50 yards rushing and two touchdowns on the ground for the first five-touchdown game of his six-year college journey.

On Wake’s first drive of the second half, he connected with freshman receiver Jack Foley over the middle of the field for a 64-yard touchdown pass. It was a three-play drive that went 75 yards and took all of 54 seconds off the clock for the 23-9 lead.

And then he got in a rhythm. MSU got another 36-yard field goal from Ferrie. Ashford engineered a 75-yard touchdown drive where he went five for five throwing. He then scored the touchdown on a two-yard run for the 30-12 lead.

MSU Fights Back

MSU would not go away. The Bulldogs marched 65 yards on eight plays. Taylor dove over the pile at the goal line for the touchdown from one yard out. MSU converted on the two-point conversion on the last play of the third quarter. Taylor threw a jump pass to the middle of the end zone for Seydou Traore to get the score 30-20 at the end of the third.

Taylor completed a pass to Sanfrisco Magee at the Wake Forest 28-yard line. The receiver outran the two defenders to get into the end zone for the touchdown to narrow Wake’s lead to 30-27. Dickert said he saw players starting to hang their heads, and he went up and down the sideline, reminding his players that they were still winning.

Too Much Wake

But this was a Wake Forest team that had answers for everything that MSU threw at them. Ashford connected with Sawyer Racanelli at the Mississippi State 29-yard line. Racanelli broke several tackles before being dragged down at the one-yard line. Ashford bounced it into the end zone from there. But as Dickert said, nothing was easy for this team. The PAT was blocked and run all the way back by Kelly Jones for two points. Wakes lead was 36-29.

Wake would put it away on its next series. Ashford pushed a shovel pass to Ty Clark at the Wake Forest 33-yard line. Clark, who was starting because Demond Claiborne is spending his time getting ready for the NFL, raced the length of the field for the final score of the game.

Ashford was named the game’s MVP. After accepting the bowl’s championship trophy, Dickert got the ceremonial dumping of Duke’s Mayo. Nick Anderson and Ashford did the pouring. But he got his three kids up there with him to all get doused. “I couldn’t quite get my wife to do it,” he said after the game. “She said absolutely not.”

Work to Be Done

The bowl game used to be the end of the season for teams. But Dickert spent several hours in his hotel room today in an improvised transfer portal war room. He was talking with his staff and some potential players. He is even picking someone up at the airport on Saturday morning for the first of what will be several on-campus visits over the next few days. Dickert said last week, the goal is to sign about 16 transfer portal players.

Last Word will have more post-game reaction from Wake Forest’s 43-29 Mayo Bowl win on Saturday.