There are a lot of stats and highlight points being thrown at Wake Forest fans right now. Obviously, the most critical numbers are 6-1 overall and 2-1 in the ACC. The Demon Deacons’ record is what matters most. But Wake is performing at a high level right now going into the stretch run of the season. What can we learn from a look at the numbers and what they mean to the team?
Wake Forest is ranked 10th in both the Coaches Poll and the AP/media Poll this week. It is only the second time in the history of the AP Poll that Wake has been a top-10 team. The other time was last year.
Wake Forest Is Performing At A High Level
The Demon Deacons earned their most recent ranking with a blowout win over Boston College Saturday in Winston-Salem. Getting there is one thing. How they got there is another.
Wake is seven points away from perfection. That double-overtime loss at home to Clemson looms large as the Tigers close in on the ACC Atlantic Division title. If only the ACC was division-free this year instead of next. But dealing with the here and now, even with that loss, Wake Forest is staring down an opportunity to make program history.
The Offense Is the Thing
Ask head coach Dave Clawson and he will tell you the current success is a byproduct of the entire team. He is correct, but that is also coach speak. There is no denying that the forward motion of the program is being steered by the offense.
Wake Forest is 10th in the country in scoring at 41.4 points per game. By the way, sitting at ninth at 41.7 is North Carolina, but let’s not get a few weeks ahead of ourselves. The Demon Deacons are averaging a tick over 438 yards per game.
The rushing attack is viable at 143 yards per game. The trifecta of Justice Ellison, Christian Turner, and Quinton Cooley are bringing balance to the offensive attack if not in blistering numbers. The truly big numbers belong to Sam Hartman. To paraphrase baseball legend Reggie Jackson, Hartman is the straw that stirs the Wake Forest drink.
Hartman
The fifth-year junior threw five touchdown passes Saturday against Boston College and ran for another. He is now tied for fifth in the country in touchdown passes this season with 21. The two quarterbacks immediately above him are Michael Penix of Washington with 22 and Will Rogers of Mississippi State with 23. They have both hit their numbers in eight games. Hartman has done it in six.
Hartman currently is third in the ACC history books with 93 touchdown passes. He is two behind Phillip Rivers from NC State and 14 behind Tajh Boyd of Clemson. If you are inclined to get granular in the comparison, Rivers got his 95 touchdown passes in 49 games. Boyd got his 107 in 47 games. Hartman has played in 42 games to this point. All things remaining constant he will pass Rivers for the number two spot and do it in fewer games than what Rivers played. Wake Forest has five regular season games left. Hartman is averaging three-and-a-half touchdown passes per game. That would give him 17 more touchdown throws before the postseason. That comes to 110 touchdown passes in 47 games, more than Boyd and in the same number of games. No asterisk on this record and no debate…if he gets there.
Hartman can go from amiable to gruff with the media in a heartbeat depending upon his performance in the game. The one constant is his outward lack of concern about personal records. “When you execute at a high level like we’ve done the last couple of weeks, it’s a lot more fun,” Hartman said Saturday after the win over Boston College. He said he is getting his enjoyment through others. “I sit in my chair [in the locker room] after a game and watch guys celebrate,” he said. “To see the smiles on those guys’ faces kind of makes it for me.”
Credit Where Credit Is Due
When asked what it took to get the 93-career touchdown passes, he deflected to talking about the long list of talented receivers he has played with at Wake Forest and he gave credit to the offensive linemen who have provided the pass protection over the years. Notably, he also thanked the football program as a whole. “You’ve got to look back at my career and first you’ve got to thank Wake for sticking with me because I have had some bad moments.”
The high-powered performances from the offense and from Hartman, in particular, have become routine at Wake Forest over the last two seasons. It is so much the case that when asked about Hartman’s six touchdowns Saturday, Clawson said he was not even aware of it until getting to the postgame podium. “That’s the beauty of you guys being in the media. You always have this big-picture perspective. I didn’t even know that [about Hartman’s touchdowns] until I came in here,” he said when asked Saturday.
Where’s The Love?
Any list of quarterbacks this season that have been thrown into the Heisman Trophy talk has included Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud, USC’s Caleb Williams, and of course last year’s winner, Bryce Young of Alabama. Even Drake Maye is getting thrown in, having played exactly seven college football games at North Carolina. Not once has Hartman’s name appeared on any national prognostication list. Clawson takes significant umbrage with that. “He doesn’t get the credit he deserves,” Clawson said.
He went on to make it clear where some of the responsibility lies…with the media. Clawson pointed out that Hartman was second-team All-ACC after the 2021 season. The first team quarterback was Kenny Pickett who is now in the NFL. Yet at ACC Media Days in July, the voting members of the media still did not anoint Hartman as the pre-season number one. “That’s so disrespectful to what he’s done and what he’s accomplished. There’s not another quarterback in the country I would rather have,” Clawson said.
He acknowledged that it is not a two-person PR campaign for his quarterback. “The beauty of Sam is that he doesn’t care. He just wants to win. I think this bothers me more than it bothers him.” He went on to continue the “pro-Hartman” campaign. “I think he’s one of the very elite quarterbacks in the entire country. How he’s not getting mentioned in the Heisman stuff and things like that is beyond me.”
Some, including this reporter, were giving too much credit to North Carolina State’s Devin Leary. In a July article, we tabbed Leary as the best returning quarterback in the conference and had Hartman second. We were wrong.
Balance
Publicly, and on the record, at least, Hartman proves Clawson right. He doesn’t care about the acknowledgments he presumably deserves. “It’s Wake Forest, so what do you expect, right?” He said he sees what Clawson is talking about but, “If you start chasing rankings, and touchdowns, and rewards then you start missing the big picture and missing throws and chasing stuff that’s not there.”
The defense, under new defensive coordinator Brad Lambert, has significantly improved from last year’s bend-but-don’t-break model. There is still much work to do on that side of the ball. Clawson told us last week when asked about the defense, “We’ve probably given up too many explosive plays still. I still don’t think we are playing the deep ball in the air well.”
It got better Saturday against Boston College. The pressure from the front seven also showed improvement, albeit against a vastly undermanned BC offensive line. The Wake defensive line has been getting “at” the quarterback more this season, but not “to” the quarterback. Opposing play callers have not been sacked much and have rarely been made to pay the price for their throwing. Wake is tied for 46th in the country in defensive sacks, and is averaging about half as many per game as the top teams in the country in the statistic. Still, Saturday, they produced two sacks and an impactful nine tackles for loss.
The Bigger Picture
The offensive outpouring and a modestly improved defense have people talking about an 11-1 finish to the regular season. Some fans get nervous ticks even thinking about the historic prospects. They will tell you it is about focusing on one game at a time as though they are the ones suiting up.
As for the players and coaches, they are supposed to say and maybe even believe those things. But it is undeniable, particularly when looking at the offensive production, that a new standard is being set in Winston-Salem. For proof of that, we go to defensive lineman Rondell Bothroyd. With the sixth win Saturday, Wake Forest is bowl eligible. Four years ago, that was something to celebrate. And now? “We were celebrating tonight, but it was kind of like a ‘next game’ kind of thing. So the standard is kind of up there now. The bowl is a definite, but we’ve got to make like a national stage, championship game kind of thing.”
The performances, like the new expectations, are in pretty rarified air at Wake Forest these days.
