{"id":68409,"date":"2024-11-17T13:00:22","date_gmt":"2024-11-17T18:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=68409"},"modified":"2024-11-17T13:53:13","modified_gmt":"2024-11-17T18:53:13","slug":"68409-wake-forest-had-to-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2024\/11\/17\/68409-wake-forest-had-to-say\/","title":{"rendered":"What Wake Forest Had To Say, This Time After a Loss at North Carolina"},"content":{"rendered":"

In some ways, it seems like it was not that long ago that Wake Forest won three of four games, was sitting at 4-4 overall, and had visions of bowl games dancing in their collective heads. And then the last two weeks happened and unceremoniously popped that bubble of hopes and dreams. After back-to-back to losses, the Deacs are now 4-6, and facing a top-10 Miami team on the road next. As we do every week, it is time to check in on what Wake Forest had to say, this time after a loss at North Carolina.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Demon Deacons had nine penalties for 90 yards Saturday night in Chapel Hill. UNC had one more penalty, but when your miscues don\u2019t cost you the game like they did for Wake, folks tend to overlook those numbers.<\/p>\n

Dave Clawson<\/h3>\n

Wake Forest head coach Dave Clawson was left to wonder about his veteran team\u2019s play. \u201cThey play so hard and give such great effort and they never quit,\u201d Clawson said after the game. \u201cBut the execution and the details and all those things is just not anywhere close to where it needs to be in order to be a good football team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clawson commented on how disciplined play and a lack of mistakes were a hallmark of his Wake Forest teams not that long ago. \u201cRight now, two years in a row, and the last two weeks in a row, we\u2019re not taking care of the football. We have a lot of penalties. And it\u2019s hard for any team to overcome that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Demon Deacons had five first-half penalties, four by the offensive line for things like false starts and snap infractions. \u201cThese are guys that have played a lot of football,\u201d he said noting the number of years his offensive linemen have been around. \u201cAt times I don\u2019t think we grasp the details of what it takes to win a football game like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mistakes<\/h3>\n

UNC also scored 14 points off Wake\u2019s three second-half turnovers. One of those came off a Michael Kern interception on a pass that was intended for Horatio Fields and was seemingly thrown behind him. Here was Clawson\u2019s analysis of the play. \u201cHoratio didn\u2019t run the right route. But one thing you do as a quarterback is if the receiver doesn\u2019t run the right route, you don\u2019t ever reward him with the football.\u201d Of Kern, Clawson said, \u201cWe love him, and he\u2019s a great kid. He\u2019s been here six years. But you can\u2019t make those plays.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the things that happened today were controllable,\u201d Clawson said of the Wake Forest mistakes. \u201c He called some of the mistakes, \u201cLack of focus errors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two weeks ago Clawson described his team as ascending. Now it has lost back-to-back winnable games. He was asked Saturday if it can still be an ascending team. He paused before answering. \u201cI do think we go into every game, as opposed to last year, feeling like we have a chance just because we are capable of moving the ball and scoring points.\u201d Clawson said what continues to be missing is a 60-minute complete game. \u201cWe have flashes of playing well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jasheen Davis<\/h3>\n

Even with the career high in rushing yards by UNC\u2019s Omarion Hampton, the Wake Forest defense UNC to 362 total net yards. But Davis<\/a> was not blaming the mistakes by the offense for the loss. \u201cUltimately it\u2019s a team sport. There\u2019s things we can do better in order to elevate our game. At the end of the day, you\u2019ve just got to shake this one off,\u201d the defensive lineman said after the game.<\/p>\n

Michael Kern<\/h3>\n

The backup quarterback went from the highs to the lows all in one half of football. When he came in for the injured Hank Bachmeier early in the third quarter, he led a 75-yard touchdown drive. And then he had three turnovers, (two interceptions and a lost fumble), which proved to be costly for the Demon Deacons.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s balls I didn\u2019t have to force,\u201d he said after the game. \u201cOur defense was playing so good. They really kept us in the game, even with the turnovers. I really didn\u2019t have to force any of those balls. I could have just let the game come to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Branson Combs<\/h3>\n

On having to face Hampton, who finished the day with 35 carries for 244 yards and a touchdown. \u201cHe\u2019s a really good back. There\u2019s no question about that. He can do it all. He\u2019s tough to tackle. It takes two a lot. You tell on film that he\u2019s really good, and you get on the field and he\u2019s really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without pointing fingers at the offense, there was again the theme that even as Hampton had his yards, UNC scored 14 points off Wake’s turnovers. Combs would not say it, but the defense did a lot of its job, even holding UNC to 10 first-half points. \u201cWe found a way to get some stops tonight. I do think we did that. We try to do what we can to win,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Wake
Photo courtesy: Bob Donnan-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In some ways, it seems like it was not that long ago that Wake Forest won three of four games, was sitting at 4-4 overall, and had visions of bowl games dancing in their collective heads. And then the last two weeks happened and unceremoniously popped that bubble of hopes and dreams. After back-to-back to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":68412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7],"tags":[102,34401,1135,8925,1249],"class_list":["post-68409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-acc","tag-acc","tag-branson-combs","tag-dave-clawson","tag-michael-kern","tag-wake-forest-demon-deacons"],"modified_by":"Tony Siracusa, CFB Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}