That one was never in doubt. The Deacs travelled across the entire country and dominated the winless Oregon State Beavers by a score of 39-14. This one probably could have looked even worse if Wake hadn’t
let off the gas pedal in the 4th quarter.
Right before the game started, it was announced that starting QB Robby Ashford was out with a thumb injury he suffered in the Virginia Tech game. That gave Charlotte transfer DeShawn Purdie his first start of the season, and he did not waste any time. Purdie put the Deacs on the board almost immediately, hitting Chris Barnes for a 38-yard touchdown pass on the 3rd play of the game.
After a turnover on downs on Wake’s next possession, the Beavers made their way down the field to the 29 yard line. The Deacs got a huge play on a blocked field goal from BJ Williams to keep the Beavers off the board. Zamari Stevenson caught the failed attempt and ran it 70 yards back the other way for a touchdown, but a Nick Andersen holding call brought the ball back to midfield. The penalty did not hurt Wake at all, as Purdie found Micah Mays deep for a 52-yard touchdown just 2 plays later. The Beavers completely blew the coverage, and Mays was all alone in the endzone for Purdie’s 2nd touchdown pass of the day.
The rest of the half continued in the same way. Purdie threw his 3rd TD pass of the day on a 11 yard RPO slant to Chris Barnes, and Connor Calvert nailed a 43 yards field goal to make it 25-0 at the half.
While the offense was doing its job, the Wake Forest defense also played lights out in the first half. The Deacs forced 2 turnovers and held the Beavers to just 128 total yards and 0 points– Oregon State only moved the ball more than 20 yards on 2 of their 8 drives and had just 31 rushing yards at the half. Contrary to Oregon State head coach Trent Bray’s thoughts that Wake hadn’t “earned anything” in the first half, the Deacs were in complete control of this game.
The game was more or less over at that point–the Beavers never got it closer than the 25-point halftime deficit. Purdy hooked up with Chris Barnes again early in the 3rd quarter for a 55-yard TD bomb and the duo’s 3rd touchdown of the day—that score felt like it was enough to put this one completely out of reach. Barnes finished the day with 3 catches for 155 yards and 3 touchdowns.
DeShawn Purdie also had quite the day, completing 14 of his 27 passes for 270 yards and 4 touchdowns. There will likely be conversations among the fanbase about whether or not the Deacs should go back to Ashford after a performance like that, but I think it can be tricky to truly determine how much of today’s game was Purdie and how much was a terrible Beaver secondary. On 3 of the 4 touchdowns, Purdie was basically playing catch in the back yard, just launching the ball to a receiver who was standing all by his lonesome in the endzone. It was an impressive performance from Purdie nonetheless, so I completely understand fans wanting to see Purdie as the starter going forward.
Oregon State finally got on the board in the 4th quarter on a 29-yard Conrell Hatcher Jr. touchdown run. Not being able to get the shutout sucks considering how good the defense was playing to that point, but the game was pretty much over, so it is understandable that Wake let up a little. The Deacs answered back on literally the next play from scrimmage, with Demond Claiborne taking the handoff 66 yards to the endzone to put Wake up 39-7.
Claiborne finished with 16 rushes for 144 yards and 1 touchdown for his 3rd game this season with 100+ yards and his 5th straight game with a rushing touchdown. The Deacs went onto to win 39-14.
I thought that Oregon State might be slightly better than their 0-6 record, but that was clearly not the case. Whether it was just because of the talent level or the Beavers mentally giving up on the season after the rough start, it was very obvious why this team has not won a game all season. Still, this was probably the best game the defense has played all season, holding Oregon State to just 309 total yards and 14 garbage time points when the game was well in hand. The secondary was fantastic yet again, holding the 2 Oregon State QBs to just 19-42 passing for 175 yards. They also held Trent Walker, one of the nation’s best receivers, to 2 catches for 14 yards. I don’t really care if Oregon State is the worst team in the nation, it felt amazing to have a stress free, wire to wire, dominant win on the road over an FBS team.
With this win, Wake heads into the bye week at 4-2, and they are really one missed offsides call away from being 5-1. The back half of the schedule is probably a little tougher than the first 6 games, but I think it’s safe to say that the Deacs have overperformed expectations up until this point. Wake will have to win just 2 of their final 6 games to become eligible for a bowl in year 1 of the Jake Dickert era, and they really have a chance at winning 7+ games this season. That might be slightly optimistic on my part, but the future is currently looking very bright for the Deacs.
Go Deacs!
