{"id":81940,"date":"2025-11-02T08:21:46","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T13:21:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=81940"},"modified":"2025-11-02T08:21:46","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T13:21:46","slug":"81940-what-wake-forest-said-after-the-florida-state-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/11\/02\/81940-what-wake-forest-said-after-the-florida-state-loss\/","title":{"rendered":"What Wake Forest Said After the Florida State Loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is not much of a way to put a good spin on a 42-7 blowout loss. But that is what Wake Forest efforted to do after Saturday, after the thrashing in Tallahassee<\/a> by the Florida State Seminoles. The loss dropped Wake Forest to 5-3 overall and 2-3 in ACC play. It was also the first conference win of the season for Florida State, putting Seminole fans in a celebratory mood. As for the Demon Deacons\u2019 mood, let\u2019s see what Wake Forest had to say after the Florida State loss.<\/p>\n

What Wake Forest Said<\/h2>\n

Jake Dickert<\/h3>\n

\u201cWe got decidedly beat in all three phases,\u201d he said in the post-game press conference. That sums up the night, for sure. FSU put up 421 yards of total offense to only 247 for Wake. The Deacs committed a game-defining 11 penalties. A couple of those erased big gains and put the offense in a hole. \u201cIt [the penalties] killed our momentum,\u201d Dickert said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had some big plays. We had some good runs. I mean, Demond had some breakaway things and every one of them came back.\u201d There were 78 yards on two Claiborne runs that came back because of holding penalties. Six of Wake\u2019s penalties came in the first half, totaling 50 yards. They kept The Deacs from answering FSU\u2019s two touchdown drives. \u201cWhen you\u2019re constantly behind the chains, never really able to get explosive plays. All of them came back as a penalty.\u201d<\/p>\n

It’s not easy to bounce back from such a decisive loss. And Wake\u2019s next game is against the ACC-leading Virginia Cavaliers in Charlottesville. But there is still bowl eligibility out there if the Deacs can get to six wins. So, how to \u201crally the troops\u201d is going to be a big part of the week ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a culture test,\u201d Dickert said. \u201cIt\u2019s a test of who we are and what we\u2019re about.\u201d The coach was confident in what comes next. \u201cI know the way our team is going to respond to this. There\u2019s not a single person that works throughout the course of the week for this type of result,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have to be better as a football team. It starts with me and me only. I\u2019ve got to put our players in a better position to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jayden Loving<\/h3>\n

The defensive lineman had four tackles on the night, including one tackle for loss. He had an explanation for the penalties and the big plays given up. \u201cI feel like we had a lack of focus,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re a much more disciplined defense than that, as we\u2019ve shown week in and week out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loving said the focus issue never arose during the week of practice. \u201cI feel like it was just a today problem,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I feel like something just came over us today. I don\u2019t know what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loving said once things went sideways, they just kept going. \u201cI feel like we could have handled adversity better,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen stuff doesn\u2019t go our way, we need to respond better and react better.\u201d<\/p>\n

So how does Wake put this game in the rear-view mirror with such a huge road game ahead? \u201cJust do what we\u2019ve been doing week in and week out. We\u2019re going in there starting tomorrow with a whole new mindset, 1-0.\u201d<\/p>\n

Micah Mays, Jr.<\/h3>\n

The wide receiver said it was penalties that kept the team from having big plays and didn\u2019t allow the Deacs to sustain drives. He talked about his holding penalty that brought back a 53-yard run by Claiborne. \u201cI feel like we weren\u2019t taking really good care of the football,\u201d he said. \u201cThe penalties were a real killer for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Final Thought<\/h3>\n

We go back to Dickert for another summation of the game. \u201cSometimes you need this, and we just got our ass kicked in every phase.\u201d The need to move past the loss is magnified by Wake’s November history. Over the last 10 years (going back to 2015, but excluding the 2020 Covid season), including Saturday’s loss to FSU, the Demon Deacons are 10-27 in November over the years. Even in the 2021 division championship season, Wake was 2-2 in November.<\/p>\n

The next opponent, Virginia, is the only school in the ACC with an undefeated conference record. The Cavaliers are 8-1 overall after a win in Berkley on Saturday. Game time in Charlottesville next Saturday is 7 pm.<\/p>\n

Main Image: Melina Myers-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is not much of a way to put a good spin on a 42-7 blowout loss. But that is what Wake Forest efforted to do after Saturday, after the thrashing in Tallahassee by the Florida State Seminoles. The loss dropped Wake Forest to 5-3 overall and 2-3 in ACC play. It was also the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":81943,"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":[7,2,35636,17,35643],"tags":[9582,35366,9662],"class_list":["post-81940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-acc","category-featured","category-florida-state-seminoles","category-news","category-wake-forest-demon-deacons","tag-jake-dickert","tag-jayden-loving","tag-micah-mays"],"modified_by":"Tony Siracusa, CFB Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81940","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=81940"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81944,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81940\/revisions\/81944"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}