Wake Forest’s Disappearing Offense Costs the Deacs

It was Wake Forest’s time to play a higher-end school, and the Deacs were not up to the task. Their “Now you see it, now you don’t” offense had too many disappearing acts in the second half. Couple that with a Wake defense that could not keep up with the outside speed of NC State. Wake goes down 34-24 Thursday night in Winston-Salem and falls to 2-1 overall and 0-1 in ACC play.

Early Explosion

Wake head coach Jake Dickert had been insisting his team needed more explosive plays on offense and on special teams. They got some of both. But that was offset by an offense that went nowhere at critical moments of the second half. Wake had all of 13 yards of total offense in the third quarter as it lost its 24-17 halftime lead. For the game, Wake had 267 yards of offense in the first half and only 44 in the second half.

The game started fast enough. Chris Barnes ran back the opening kickoff 98 yards for the Wake touchdown.

That lead grew to 14-0 for the Deacs when Wake drove 93 yards on seven plays. Ashford hit a streaking Barnes along the right side for 70 yards to the NC State eight-yard line. A horse collar penalty on the play took it to the Wolfpack’s four-yard line. After a false start penalty, Robby Ashford took it five yards to just outside the goal line. Demond Claiborne crammed it up the middle for the touchdown and the two-score lead.

NC State Has Answers

As improved as Wake looked, NC State had the weapons to respond. The Wolfpack had four straight first-down plays on a drive that went 75 yards. Quarterback CJ Bailey rolled out of the pocket, an area he lived in most of the game, and, going to his right, he connected with tight end Justin Joly for a five-yard touchdown pass.

On Wake’s next drive, Ashford drifted backward and, throwing off his back foot, lobbed a pass that was intended for Barned. Instead, NC State defensive back Isaiah Shirley picked it off and returned it 41 yards for the touchdown to tie the game at 14.

Ashford, in what is becoming Ashford fashion of ups and downs, delivered a big strike through the air. Tight end Eni Falayi got behind the NC State defense in busted coverage and took in the 42-yard reception at the Wolfpack 21-yard line. Six plays later, Ashford faked the handoff to Claiborne and ran in untouched from a yard out. The nine-play, 75-yard drive gave Wake a 21-14 lead.

That lead expanded to 24-14 with a Connor Calvert 28-yard field goal. NC State answered that with a 24-yard field goal from Kanoah Vinesett, putting the halftime score at 24-17 Wake Forest. The Deacs had 267 yards of offense at the half (to 229 for NC State). Even though Claiborne was held to 34 yards on 10 carries, Ashford put up 212 yards on 14 of 18 passing, albeit with the pick-six on his decision-making.

Second Half Fizzle

And that was it. That was the extent of the upside for the Wake Forest offense for the game. The Wake offense ran a total of nine plays in the third quarter. The Deacs had no first downs and 13 yards of offense.

Meanwhile, Bailey led a 70-yard scoring drive that ended with a four-yard touchdown pass to Joly to tie the game at 24.

The NC State offensive line continued to control the trenches, allowing Smothers and Bailey to punish the Wake defense on the edges. A Wake defensive line that had feasted on pocket passers the last two weeks had few answers for the outside speed of NC State. The Wolfpack started pulling off significant chunks of yards.

Wake finished the fourth quarter with only 31 yards of offense. Ashford was four of 12 passing for 24 yards and another interception. They had seven net yards of rushing, and none of them belonged to Claiborne. Last week’s ACC Running Back of the Week finished the game with 36 yards rushing on 12 carries.

Meanwhile, Bailey threw a 12-yard touchdown pass to Keenan Jackson, and Vinesett added a 38-yard field goal for the final score.

Blunt Assessment

The Wake head coach was direct after the game. “Man, that’s a bad half of football,” Dickert said in the postgame press conference. Still, he tried looking for a bright spot, proclaiming the Deacs are better now than they were in week one.

The proof of that, if it is the case, will be in the game film review on Sunday. “We have to be mature enough to come back on Sunday after a couple of days off and watch ourselves doing bad things that end up costing you the game.”

Dickert said the collapse of the offense was due in part to losing at the line of scrimmage and not being able to establish a run game.

Quarterback Challenges Again

One of the things he is going to see when he does the film review is the reaction of Ashford late in the game. It resembled some of what concerned Dickert in training camp. Teammates were trying to keep the quarterback’s emotions buoyant instead of the other way around. “He’s got to be mature enough to see that body language that everyone else sees,” Dickert said of the upcoming film review. “It’s like a billboard. He’s got to be able to take the punches, the good and the bad. He’s got to keep rolling. And he’s got to know we need him to stay in the game.” Dickert added, “He’s got to be mature enough as a competitor to go out there and represent us the right way.”

Wake Forest is off next weekend. The good news is they have time to work on what went wrong. Whether they fix it or not remains to be seen. The bad news is that this loss is what they have to live with for an extended period of time. “They’ve got to sit on this for 16 days,” Dickert said.

Last Word will have more post-game coverage and comments on Friday afternoon.