A season that just a few weeks ago was full of promise has hit another brick wall as Wake Forest drops another game. The Demon Deacons got outscored by far too much early on in the game and dropped their straight, this time to North Carolina, 36-34, Saturday night at Truist Field.
This was not like the previous two losses. This was not a turnover-burdened Wake Forest team with a self-destructing offense. In fact, Wake committed only one turnover, but it was a costly one. The interception thrown by quarterback Sam Hartman late in the fourth quarter killed a Wake drive and allowed UNC to get the go-ahead field goal that would prove to be the game-decider.
After starting 6-1 and getting into the AP Top 10, Wake is now 6-4 overall, 2-4 in ACC play, and struggling to keep its collective head above water.
Once again, Wake Forest got down early and spent the rest of the half trying to claw its way back. It has become one of the prevalent story arcs of the season.
On its first drive of the game, UNC went 91 yards downfield on 10 plays for the touchdown. Second-year freshman quarterback Drake Maye was everything as advertised, and more. On the first drive, he was six of seven passing for 83 yards and the touchdown. He connected with receiver Josh Downs on a 12-yard pass to the back of the end zone and UNC was out to a 7-0 lead.
The Tar Heels’ lead expanded to 14-0 on the next drive. Wake had gone three and out after the UNC touchdown and it took the Tar Hells all of :51 seconds to go 69 yards on four plays with Elijah Green going the last five yards up the middle for the score and the two-touchdown lead.
Maye wound up 31 of 49 passing on the night for 448 yards and three touchdowns. After the game Wake head coach Dave Clawson said of Maye, “His film is really impressive, but he’s even better live.”
Wake Forest got on the board late in the first quarter. Hartman hit Taylor Morin on a slant pattern at the three-yard line and the receiver carried it in the rest of the way for the score, capping off a 78-yard drive to make it 14-7.
As they did all night, the Tar Heels had answers on offense of their own. Maye used Bryson Nesbit, Antoine Greene, and Downs to march downfield. He connected with Downs on a seven-yard pass up the middle for a touchdown and the 21-7 lead.
Wake was reduced to digging out of a two-score deficit yet again. Hartman connected with Ke’Shawn Williams on a 40-yard completion over the middle at the UNC 37-yard line. Williams weaved his way through tacklers and took it down to the Tar Heels’ two-yard line. The drive was stalling out there, but on fourth and one, Christian Turner pushed his way through the middle for the score.
Wake tied it one possession later. UNC punter Ben Kiernan got off a kick that only went 36 yards to the Wake 35-yard line. UNC also got called for a facemask on the punt. Add that to the return and Wake was starting its drive from the UNC 36-yard line.
Hartman capped the drive, rolling to right and throwing to Greene in the back of the endzone. Wake had come all the way back to tie at 21-21.
But just as quickly as they caught up, they were down again. Maye drove UNC 75 yards in just 1:44. He hit Downs for 20 yards on the left side of the end zone. It was the receiver’s third touchdown catch of the half, and even with the missed PAT, Wake was down at halftime, again, 27-21.
Wake climbed back in the third quarter. Hartman connected with A.T. Perry for a 32-yard touchdown pass to cap a 73-yard drive. The Demon Deacons had a one-point lead at 28-27. Maye again had the answer as he did all night.
He threw a 22-yard completion to John Copenhaver and a 24-yarder to Nesbit to put the Tar Hells into the red zone. He finished off the 69-yard drive with a five-yard touchdown run of his own. UNC’s tow-point PAT failed but they had the lead back at 33-28.
Wake had one more scoring drive in it. Hartman hit Greene in stride over the middle of the field for a reception at the UNC 23-yard line. The receiver was well behind the defensive back and he cruised into the end zone for the 60-yard touchdown play and the 34-33 lead going into the fourth quarter.
The Demon Deacons had two more chances to expand the lead and even put the game on ice. On fourth and three from the UNC 10-yard line, Hartman scrambled up the middle. But he fumbled the ball at the line of scrimmage. The ball went forward and was recovered by Wake. But you can’t advance a fumble forward, so the ball went back to where the turnover occurred. That also meant they did not pick up the first down and turned the ball over on downs.
Later in the quarter, they were at the UNC 42-yard line and that is when Hartman was picked by Cam’Ron Kelly. The Tar Heels turned that into the game-winning field goal.
This didn’t have the absurdity of the turnovers that the last two weeks did. But in some ways that made the impact of the loss a little tougher to take. “This one hurts. It stings,” Clawson said after the game. As always, he will look at the tape, but the pain immediately after the game was clear. “This close after the game, it’s hard for me to feel anything real positive. We expected to win the game and I think we played that way.” He called it, “A tough way to lose.”
While Clawson relies on the tape review to get to what went wrong, or right, with any game, he had a read on Hartman’s interception right after the game. “He threw it late,” Clawson said indicating that the intended receiver, Greene, had been open. “The safety came back to the boundary,” and Clawson said Hartman threw, “A fraction of a second late.”
It was, as most games have been this season, a mixed bag for Hartman. The touchdown pass to Greene late in the game was the 100th of his career. He is seven shy of tying the all-time ACC record. But with the interception, he now has seven over the last three games. We could not get an assessment of the night from the starting quarterback. For the third week in a row, he opted not to take questions from the media in the post-game press conference. Not so coincidentally, that is the same number of weeks as the current losing streak.
There will be much made in the coming days about Clawson’s 24-hour rule to get over wins and losses. And there will be the talk of the team regrouping and taking one game at a time. But the best the team can do is finish conference play with a .500 record. And the most wins they can get, including the post-season is nine. For a team that was so touted for its experience and veteran leadership that surely is far below what expectations rightfully were.
