Well, that one was pretty bad. The Deacs went on the road to a Florida State team that had lost 4 games in a row, and they never had a chance. By the time Wake finally got on the score board, the game had been over for probably an entire quarter. With the loss, the Deacs dropped to 5-3 overall and 2-3 in ACC play.
The story of the first half was just Wake shooting themselves in the foot on offense. The Deacs had a 25-yard run called back for holding, an unsportsmanlike penalty for pulling a defender
off a pile, a 53-yard run called back for holding, and a fumble on what would have been a first down until the ball bounced back behind the line to gain. Wake even wanted to go for it on 4th down after that fumble but got a false start on the play and had to punt. It seemed like every time the Deacs had something going, they found a way to make a drive ending mistake. Wake finished the first half with 6 penalties for 50 yards.
Even without the mental mistakes, the Deacs had a rough time moving the ball in the first half. Robby Ashford, who was back in the starting lineup at QB, was really having a hard time throwing the ball over the line of scrimmage. On the few plays where he did find someone to throw the ball to, he struggled with accuracy, throwing several passes into the dirt or behind the receiver. On most of his drop backs, he simply couldn’t find anyone open and had to scramble and run for what few yards he could get. The Deacs finished the first half with just 144 total yards and 54 passing yards, leading to a 14-0 deficit. It was the first time Wake had been shut out in the first half since 2023 (NC State).
Things looked a little more promising right at the start of the 2nd half. The Deacs forced a turnover on downs on the first FSU possession and were driving down the field for a chance to score their first points of the game. Keeping with the theme of the night, right when it looked like something good was going to happen, a snap hit Demond Claiborne’s helmet and was scooped up by the Seminoles. Florida State scored 7 plays later on a 1-yard Gavin Sawchuk touchdown run to take a 21-0 lead, and the wheels pretty much fell off from there. Wake’s next possession was an 8 play, 16-yard drive that ended on a Kevin Burkhalter drop on 4th and 5. Florida State scored a touchdown 2 plays later. After a Robby Ashford interception, the Noles found the endzone yet again just 3 plays later. In the blink of an eye–5 minutes of game time–Florida State scored 21 unanswered points to push their lead from 14-0 to 35-0. Everything after that was just garbage time.
The Deacs finally got on the board in this one with a touchdown with 7 minutes left to play, but only after the defense once again gifted them the ball at the 19-yard line. Since the Oregon State game, Wake Forest has scored just 20 total points over 2 games–17 of those points came on drives starting at around the opponent’s 20-yard line after the defense forced a turnover. That is simply not sustainable, and Wake is extremely lucky that they managed to go 1-1 in that stretch. In my opinion, quarterback play has been the primary issue for the offense in that time, and I really just don’t know that there is any way to solve that with the players on the roster currently–Ashford and Purdie combined for 162 passing yards, 1 interception, and 1 meaningless touchdown in this game. Neither was good against SMU. The defense has done a tremendous job keeping Wake in games despite the anemic offense, but there’s only so much they can do against more talented teams when the offense doesn’t move the ball at all.
There’s no way to sugar coat it, the Deacs simply got run out of the stadium tonight. Even though Florida State was 0-4 in the conference and hadn’t won an ACC game in over 400 days, I don’t think we should overreact too much to this one. Florida State has a ton of talent on their team (they did beat Alabama, after all), and the Deacs happened to have maybe their worst game of the season. Wake is still 5-3 with plenty of winnable games coming up on the schedule, so they are still in a great spot to win 6 or more games. This may just be one where you burn the tape and forget it ever happened.
Onto the next.
Go Deacs.
