It took time and patience before it got there, but eventually, Wake Forest did what it was supposed to with a 45-13 win over FCS North Carolina A&T Thursday night in Winston-Salem.
A Painfully Slow Start
The much-anticipated question for the Demon Deacons was answered when Michael Kern was given the starting quarterback job. His first series went three and out and netted one yard of offense.
A&T returned the favor with a poor first drive. Kern took advantage of the situation. Starting at his own 45-yard line, Kern hooked up twice with slot receiver Taylor Morin for a total of 37 yards. The drive ended with running back Demond Claiborne rushing up the middle from seven yards out for the touchdown and the 7-0 lead.
But Wake’s defense was going to make it difficult early on. The A&T run game gashed the Demon Deacons defense repeatedly. The Aggies picked up 49 yards in one drive on seven carries, including Kenji Johnson’s 21-yard touchdown run to the right side, going in untouched to tie the score at 7-all.
The Quarterbacks
Hank Bachmeier entered the game for the fifth series. His immediate impact made little difference. Micah Mays dropped a pass, and the first Bachmeier series managed only nine yards in six plays.
A&T took a 10-7 lead with an Andrew Brown 38-yard field goal. With the lack of Wake offense and an early porous defense, the anxiety was easy to feel.
But with five minutes left in the second quarter, Bachmeier hit Donavon Greene with a short three-yard pass on the left side. Greene ran over and through a few defenders on his way into the end zone for the 14-10 lead. It capped a 75-yard drive that took only five plays and used only 1:49 off the clock. It wasn’t pretty getting there, but it was a lead Wake would not relinquish.
The Demon Deacons added a 31-yard field goal from Matt Dennis with :06 left on the clock for the 17-10 lead.
An Uncomfortable Lead
For being able to breathe a little easier with a halftime lead, the stats were not overwhelming. Wake had 260 yards of total offense. But the Demon Deacons defense had yielded 194 to AT&T. Aggies’ quarterback Kevin White was a very efficient eight of 13 for 96 yards and a touchdown. They also averaged four-and-a-half yards a carry for 98 rushing yards.
Separation
The Demon Deacons put the game away early in the third. A&T went three and out on its first series. Morin returned the Aggie punt 73 yards along the left side for a touchdown and the 24-10 lead. Whatever wind AT&T had in its sales by hanging tight in the first half was now gone.
Wake put it away for good on the next series. Bachmeier bootlegged to the right side. He rifled a pass low and in the front of the end zone where only Horatio Fields was going to have a shot at it. The touchdown pass capped an 88-yard drive and gave the Demon Deacons a 31-10 lead.
Bachmeier officially made it a blowout on the next drive. He connected with Deuce Alexander on a cross pattern over the middle for 25 yards. Two plays later it was a Greene 35-yard reception along the left side. The drive ended with a Bachmeier touchdown pass to Alexander cutting across the center of the end zone. The drive was 90 yards in just 2:35.
NC A&T added a fourth-quarter field goal and Wake added a Matt Carney two-yard touchdown run for the 45-13 final.
The Numbers
After a sluggish start, Wake finished with 515 yards of total offense. Eight different receivers caught passes. And Claiborne had 135 yards rushing and a touchdown on 17 carries. That’s just under eight yards a carry for those reaching for their calculators.
Bachmeier was 19 of 29 for 265 yards and three touchdowns. Kern was five of eight for 57 yards. It would seem the quarterback debate is resolved for now. But not so fast said head coach Dave Clawson after the game. When asked if this resolved the quarterback issue going into the Virginia game, Clawson laughed at the question. “Come on, Tony. Do you think I’m going to come into a press conference after the game and tell you what we’re going to do?”
He also said that he thought Kern was a couple of dropped passes away from having an equally good game. The plan, he explained, was to get both quarterbacks a couple of series in the first half, and then see how it went for the second half. But NC A&T dominated the time of possession, 36:21 to 23:39. It limited the amount of second-half series that Wake had. As a result, Kern did not get the snaps they had planned for.
The Difference Maker
And with Bachmeier having the game he did, and Claiborne having a big rushing game, it was the special teams play of Morin that was the game-changer for Clawson. “The punt return really broke the game open.I thought that was a huge, momentum-changing play.”
While there was a lot of satisfaction with the win, there was also an issue that had to give the coaching staff flashbacks to last year. Wake was penalized five times in the game. One was for Bachmeier throwing a pass while past the line of scrimmage. The other four were on the offensive line, a problem that plagued the offense all last year.
“Yeah, it bothers me,” Clawson said. “One of our goals was to play clean, so we can’t have that.”
At the end of the day, the win was the bottom line. “You play these games, and you’re expected to win them and you’re expected to win by a lot. And sometimes you come out of it and you never feel as good as you’d like to,” he said. “But we responded well in the second half.”
