Season openers against FCS opponents rarely answer much about your team. But a week two game against a conference opponent takes on a totally different tone and tenor from the blowout win the week before. This was a game of differing paces throughout, full-field scoring drives, missed opportunities, and ultimately a tough tough-to-swallow 31-30 loss for Wake Forest against Virginia.
The Demon Deacons fall to 1-1 overall and 0-1 in ACC play after a loss that most certainly did not have to be. Virginia improves to 2-0 overall and 1-0 in conference play.
The Clock Can Be Cruel
Virginia came in as a seemingly improved team. And they fared well through much of the game. Wake had answers for every time the Cavaliers closed the deficit. As Virginia climbed back into the game in the second quarter with a fast-paced offense that was picking up big chunks of yards, Wake answered with clock-draining drives in the third quarter. And then Virginia answered in the fourth quarter with its own methodical drive which was enough to put the game away.
And then there was the fumble….and the lack of fundamental play to recover the loose ball. That is going to be the play that sits with those in attendance for quite some time.
Numbers
Hank Bachmeier started the game for Wake. And despite head coach Dave Clawson’s desire to use him and Michael Kern, the game circumstances really never called for a change in quarterback. Bachmeier played well in spurts. He finished 27 of 42 passing for 403 yards and a touchdown.
Demond Claiborne added 86 yards and two touchdowns on 21 carries. The Wake offense as a whole generated a whopping 544 yards of total offense. And yet a few yards here and a few yards there were the difference.
Virginia put up 430 yards of offense, but it was the passing the quarterback Anthony Colandrea that was huge. In an offense that went high-octane speed in the second and fourth quarters, Colandrea was 33 of 43 for 357 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions.
Wake marched downfield on its first drive of the night, going 71 yards in just five plays. It ended with a Claiborne touchdown run from 17 yards out for the early 7-0 lead.
Defense Giving Up Chunks
The Wake defense was living on the edge early on. Jamare Glasker fell down on a deep throw from UVA quarterback Colandrea. Receiver Trell Harris was wide open at the Wake five-yard line but dropped the pass. Later in the first quarter, Wake defensive back Capone Blue made a lunging attempt on receiver Malachi Fields at the Wake 35-yard line. He missed and Fields took the ball all the way down to the three-yard line.
The Wake defense stuffed the UVA offense on three plays and the Cavaliers had to settle for a 19-yard field goal from Will Bettridge to cut the deficit to 7-3.
Wake Forest answered with a 21-yard field goal from Matthew Dennis for the 10-3 lead.
In the second quarter, it was the Wake defense that pitched in to the scoring. Defensive lineman Tyler Walton batted a Colandrea pass up into the air. It landed right in the big hands of Kevin Pointer at the 41-yard line. The 285-pounder ran it down to the nine-yard line. Two more Claiborne runs up the middle and the Wake lead was 17-3.
UVA went 68 yards in under three minutes on the arm of the Colandrea. He went five of six for 59 yards on the scoring drive that ended with an 18-yard pass to tight end Tyler Neville in the back of the end zone. Wake’s lead was now 17-10.
Wake added another Dennis field goal, this one from 38 yards to get the lead back up to 20-10.
UVA Goes Quickly
But UVA was picking up the pace. The Cavaliers in the second quarter were using only 10-12 seconds off the play clock before snapping the ball. The Cavaliers went 75 yards for a touchdown and used only 2:44 off the clock to close the gap to 20-17 which is where it was at the half. The pace was allowing Colandrea to find huge holes in the Wake defense. Defensive back Nick Anderson said after the game said the pace, “Caught us in some calls we didn’t like being in.” He added, “I think the temp hurt us a little bit.”
Wake used more than 11 minutes of the third quarter for two scoring drives. On its opening drive of the second half, Wake went for it twice on fourth and short and had success both times. That opened the door for a Bachmeier to Donavon Greene pass in the flat for a three-yard touchdown that extended the lead to 27-17.
Dennis capped a 69-yard drive with a 26-yard field goal that made it 30-17. The Demon Deacons had dominated the time of possession in the quarter, which should have been enough to take the air out of the Virginia offense.
But as the two team went into the fourth quarter, Colandrea needed only seven plays and 2:44 off the clock to take the Cavaliers 66 yards. He hit Harris in the back of the end zone with a 24-yard touchdown pass and the Cavaliers were just not going to go away at 30-24.
Give and Take
Wake responded by taking the ball down to the Virginia 36-yard line. On fourth and nine, Clawson went for it with 3:28 left on the clock. It was too short of a field for a punt, and too far for Dennis. But Bachmeier was sacked for one of six times during the game.
As Virginia took over, it did something it had rarely done all night. It burned a lot of clock on a scoring drive. Colandrea used 5:13 to go 56 yards on 12 plays to take the lead. He plunged forward from one yard out. With the PAT, Virginia now led 31-30 with 2:07 left in the game.
The Play That Didn’t Have to Be
Bachmeier moved the offense again. He had a seven-yard scramble. Then he completed a short pass to the right to Taylor Morin who turned it into a 19-yard completion at midfield. Bachmeier completed the next pass to Morin for a 20-yard gain to the Virginia 39-yard line. Morin was hit by defensive back Malcolm Greene and fumbled. Wake’s Donavon Greene was right there, but instead of falling on the ball, he tried to pick it up to run for more yardage. Even if he had picked it up, he was surrounded by Virginia defenders. But he never gained possession. Instead, it was picked up by Virginia’s Antonio Clary.
The Wake defense held Virginia but had to burn all three of its timeouts doing so. When it took over on its own five-yard line after the Cavaliers’ punt all that was left was some futile desperation plays before the clock ran out.
Opportunity Lost
After the game, Clawson put it simply. “They made a few more plays than us,” he said of Virginia. “We didn’t make enough plays.” Of the Morin fumble, Clawson said, “The turnover at the end of the game was a critical one. And we had a chance to recover it, and we didn’t.” He later added, “There’s no reason to try to pick that up.”
A visibly dejected Bachmeier met with the media after the game. He shouldered much of the blame for the outcome. “The mark of a great quarterback is the ability to be consistent and execute on every single play. For myself, I don’t think that I did that.”
As is Clawson’s system, Sunday is a day to regroup over game film. As Bachmeier, Anderson, and center Luke Petitbon met with the media after the game, it became clear that the regrouping is going to take some extra time.
Wake Forest returns home next weekend to face Ole Miss on homecoming.
Photo courtesy: Wake Forest Athletics
