Things that were a concern for Wake Forest for a week or two got so much worse Saturday in Blacksburg, VA. Wake Forest bottoms out, (or at least fans hope this is the bottom), with a 30-13 loss to Virginia Tech at Lane Stadium.
Wake is now 3-3 overall and cratering at 0-3 in the ACC. VA Tech is 3-4 and 2-1 in conference play.
How bad was the offense for the Demon Deacons? At the end of the third quarter, Wake had all of 68 total yards for the period and 41 of them came on the last two plays of the quarter.
Change at Quarterback
Head coach Dave Clawson made a quarterback change in the second quarter, pulling starter Mitch Griffis and opting for Michael Kern for the rest of the game. Griffis was six of 11 for 27 yards and an interception during his short stint. It was a scoreless game when the change was made and Wake had 54 yards of offense, (to 66 for VA Tech). The Deacs finished with 262 total yards, (243 passing and only 19 on the ground, factoring in seven sacks and 48 lost yards into the rushing totals).
After the game, Clawson explained the quarterback change. “He just wasn’t executing the offense. And I just thought our football team needed a spark,” he said. “At times the offense wasn’t functioning because of the quarterback. We’re six games into it. It was time I gave Michael Kern a shot.”
The impact of the change was insignificant. Kern led the offense to two drives that ended in field goals. The only touchdown was on a 96-yard kickoff return by Demond Claiborne. Kern finished the game 14 of 22 for 166 yards.
At the end of the scoreless first quarter Virginia Tech had 64 yards of offense. Wake had 54. However, at least the two teams put up the penalty yards, combining for 65 of them.
Any Offense?
VA Tech put together a viable drive early in the second quarter. Quarterback Kyron Drones managed a short drive that started at midfield. He completed two passes for a total of 39 yards and rushed up the middle for another nine. Bhayshul Tuten took it the final three yards for the touchdown and the 7-0 Hokies lead.
They added a 37-yard John Love field goal for the 10-0 lead. That was when Claiborne got his 96-yard kickoff return. Not only did it put points on the board but it had the added benefit of keeping the ineffective Wake offense off the field.
VA Tech had a quick answer. Drones hit Jaylin Lane over the middle at the Hokies’ 38-yard line. Defensive back Evan Slocum whiffed on the tackle and Lane was gone 75 yards for the touchdown and the 17-7 lead.
Wake had a chance to respond, but they got into the red zone which has become a barren desert for the Demon Deacons this season. With the help of two 15-yard VA Tech penalties, Wake Forest got all the way down to the Hokies 10-yard line but that was as far as the team could go and it settled for a Matthew Dennis 28-yard field goal for the 17-10 halftime score. Wake had managed all of 111 yards for an entire half. Add that to the 75 penalty yards for Virginia Tech and it was all that was keeping Wake in the game at any level.
Neither team managed any offense to speak of in the third quarter. But at least when VA Tech stalled out, head coach Brent Pry got creative. On fourth down from its own 48-yard line, the up man, Cole Nelson took the punt snap and ran up the middle for 20 yards to the Wake 32. The Hokies only got a 26-yard Love field goal out of the series. But with Wake’s offense being what it is, that may as well have been 50 points.
The Final Blows
It was 20-10 Virginia Tech, and the game was, for all intents and purposes, over before we even got to the fourth quarter.
Love added a 36-yard field goal. And then Drones hit Lane with a 27-yard touchdown pass for the final blow and the 30-13 final.
Kern did not finish the game, needing to be helped off the field after taking a hit. Griffis mopped up for the last few minutes.
There are a lot of questions and not a lot of answers for an offense that just isn’t very good right now. Having a lot of starters to replace is one thing, but this program has been built off having guys who may not have had the starts but have had the snaps in their four, five, or six years here. That experience is not evident anywhere on offense.
It’s Bad and Not Getting Better
The frustration for Clawson was clear in his postgame press conference. “Bad day at the office,” he said. “Credit Coach Pry and Virginia Tech. They kicked our butts. They played a lot better than we did. And they were a lot more physical than us.”
Even before looking at the film, his sense of what is wrong is clear, even if the fix is not yet apparent. “We get in the red zone, and we don’t score touchdowns. We give up a lot of sacks. Right now our short-yardage offense is awful.”
It is apparent that it may be easier to be on the other sideline. “I’m 10 years into this. So this is 10 years; we’re not starting a program. We have a program and that was just a really bad, bad performance.” He added that with the blocking issues, and with the challenges at quarterback, the Wake offense is not that hard to figure out right now. “They see how we’ve handled blitzes, and they blitz the heck out of us.” That also impaired any ability to run the ball. Virginia Tech came into the game ranked 120th in the country in rushing defense, but it stymied Wake Forest. “Right now, if you’re playing us, you’re going to make our quarterback beat you.”
The mission that starts with the Sunday film study has a direction from Clawson. “We’ve got to take a hard look at what we’re doing and who we’re doing it with and give our guys a better chance of competing.” In an answer to a different question later in the press conference, he added, “We’re not getting better. We’re getting worse. If people want to say that’s on the coaching, I certainly accept that.” And then there was this. “We play our best players. That’s why they play. If we had better players, we’d play them.”
Clawson said the team is in a hole. The excavation project starts Sunday morning.
Slowing Down the Game
In a year in which the NCAA wanted to pick up the pace of the game with a running clock, this game was woefully crawling as the ACC officiating crew had eight replay reviews. Five of them were for where the ball was spotted. Add TV timeouts on top of those, and a game that was going nowhere took three-and-a-half hours to finish.
