{"id":80908,"date":"2025-10-05T12:00:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T16:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=80908"},"modified":"2025-10-05T09:36:54","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T13:36:54","slug":"80908-what-wake-forest-said-after-the-virginia-tech-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/10\/05\/80908-what-wake-forest-said-after-the-virginia-tech-win\/","title":{"rendered":"What Wake Forest Said After the Virginia Tech Win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wake Forest got its first conference win<\/a> of the season, and the first ACC win for Jake Dickert. The Demon Deacons stopped a two-game skid with a 30-23 win over Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. There is still a lot to clean up. But for one day, the Deacs left the field with a lot of smiles, so let\u2019s hear what Wake Forest had to say after the Virginia Tech win.<\/p>\n

Jake Dickert<\/h3>\n

In our recap on Saturday, we talked about how triumphant head coach Jake Dickert was after the game. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t pretty and it wasn\u2019t easy,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I\u2019m just so proud of our football team to come into this environment and show who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who Wake is has not always been clear over the last few weeks. It wasn\u2019t just that the Deacs lost their first two conference games. It was how they lost, with a lot of self-inflicted damage. That was still there on Saturday. But Wake did just enough on the right side of the ledger to get the win.<\/p>\n

He gave a lot of credit to a much more aggressive defense. \u201cSo proud of that defense.\u201d He said that aggressiveness was the plan all week long, saying he did not think the VA Tech offensive line could handle the pressure. \u201cWe talked about it on Monday. Let\u2019s stay aggressive. Let\u2019s go win the game. And let\u2019s trust that our guys can go out there and win the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dickert talked about the play of the defensive line and how that made a more aggressive secondary possible. Davaughn Patterson led the team with eight tackles, and Nick Anderson added seven. Usually, when defensive backs are leading the team in tackles it is a sign of a problem for the defense. But in this case, it had more to do with the blitz packages and the attacking style.<\/p>\n

Of Anderson, Dickert said, \u201cI\u2019ve actually never seen a player play this much on instincts,\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019s just playing like he\u2019s a playmaker. He sees it. He feels it. And very few people trust themselves like that.\u201d Dickert said those skills are born in practice. The coach described Anderson as, \u201cA guy that practices his ass off like you\u2019ve never seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nick Anderson<\/h3>\n

The sixth-year defensive back said Wake did a good job of staying on balance through a back-and-forth game on Saturday. \u201cI think we did a good job of not riding with the highs and lows too much. We pretty much did a good job of just staying even keeled.\u201d He called it the best defensive performance of the year so far for Wake Forest.<\/p>\n

Anderson said confidence in the defense allowed for that aggressive style that worked. \u201cWe\u2019re confident in who we have rushing. We\u2019re confident in who we have covering,\u201d he said. \u201cThose guys up front, they\u2019re all animals. Every single one of them. Not only against the run, but against the pass. It makes it easy to play DB when you have that in front of you.\u201d<\/p>\n

He joked that with the success of the blitz packages, several positions had impactful games. \u201cThey\u2019ll be coming in Monday, saying how they\u2019re good pass rushers and stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Devin Kylany<\/h3>\n

He talked about what it took to get past the frustration from the overtime loss to Georgia Tech last week. \u201cWe turned the page come Monday. It was the only choice we had was to start focusing on Virginia Tech and come in here focused,\u201d he said. \u201cIt didn\u2019t taste good, but we couldn\u2019t leave that taste in our mouths for too long.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were still several areas that will need immediate cleanup. One is penalties. Wake committed 11 of them (actually more when you factor in the offsetting penalties or declined calls). Several of them were false starts. \u201cThat\u2019s the most important thing we saw in this game. We came out victorious. But the only time we didn\u2019t score is because the Deacs stopped us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robby Ashford<\/h3>\n

The definitive part of the game came halfway through the fourth quarter, when Wake put together a clock-killing drive, lasting six-and-a-half minutes. It ended with a field goal that gave Wake the final margin of victory. \u201cWe just had to dig deep. Hats off to the o-line, running back, receivers, tight ends, everybody,\u201d the quarterback<\/a> said. \u201cI\u2019m just thankful for the other guys. It was a great team win.\u201d He added, \u201cWe overcame better than we have in all our other games. That shows our growth as a team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ashford said the team needed to move past the losses in the last two games. \u201cNC State sucked. Georgia Tech sucked [the games, not the teams]. Now it feels good to be on the winning side of one,\u201d he said. \u201cThis team\u2019s going to keep fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said part of the lesson learned over the last week was, \u201cDon\u2019t take wins for granted. Because they are hard to come by in the ACC and this division in football in general. You play great competition every week, and you\u2019ve got to come out here ready to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ashford is looking forward to the game on Saturday in Corvallis. He spent his first two seasons at Oregon. And even though he rarely played, he still has a strong dislike of the rival Oregon State Beavers.<\/p>\n

Still to Come<\/h3>\n

Wake had one first down in the third quarter and nine yards rushing when Demond Claiborne could not play due to an apparent knee injury. The Deacs also still have not scored a touchdown in the fourth quarter. And even though they won the game, they were outscored in the second half for the third game in a row. All of those questions and answers could wait while the team enjoyed the vibes of a winning game. There is plenty of time on Monday to drill down to the critical details.<\/p>\n

Main Image: Brian Bishop-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wake Forest got its first conference win of the season, and the first ACC win for Jake Dickert. The Demon Deacons stopped a two-game skid with a 30-23 win over Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. There is still a lot to clean up. But for one day, the Deacs left the field with a lot of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":80911,"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":[7,2,17,35648,35643],"tags":[10629,9582,33534],"class_list":["post-80908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-acc","category-featured","category-news","category-virginia-tech-hokies","category-wake-forest-demon-deacons","tag-demond-claiborne","tag-jake-dickert","tag-nick-anderson"],"modified_by":"Tony Siracusa, CFB Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80908","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=80908"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80912,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80908\/revisions\/80912"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}