Wake Forest drops to 3-4 and a bowl game feels very far away at this point.
Wake Forest (3-4, 0-3), jumped out to a quick 10-0 lead in dominant fashion over home favorite Florida State (4-3, 2-3) before getting absolutely boat-raced the rest of the way en route to another blowout loss.
If we have said it once then we have said it a thousand times, but the Deacs now have a week to try to turn it around if it wants to become bowl eligible for the third straight year.
True freshman Sam Hartman threw the ball 40 times in the first half, completing just 18 of them, many throws on the run with a lot of pressure. He took 15 hits in the first half alone and clearly got happy feet in the pocket, leading to abandoning the pocket and trying to make plays on his own.
The first nine minutes looked fantastic, as Wake got three points on its first drive, and then got a three-and-out, resulting in the first touchdown since 2006 in Tallahassee to go up 10-0.
The second half picked up right where it left off for the Noles, as Cam Akers ran all over the Deacs to put FSU up 28-10 just 30 seconds in.
Wake Forest head coach Dave Clawson made a big deal this week about doing simple things on defense like putting forth solid effort, maintaining gap discipline, and relying on your teammates to do their job. That worked for about 10 minutes in the first quarter before completely disintegrating and falling back into the same old, same old the rest of the way.
The running game for the Deacs worked well at times, but the tempo seemingly continues to work against Wake with the youth at the helm in Hartman. That’s not a knock on him, but just a factual statement that the college game is a lot different than high school and it takes time to get adjusted.
I would categorize Hartman as an average Power 5 QB right now through seven games, but we are just used to what John Wolford did last season, which was absolutely sensational.
Hartman made some ill-timed throws, but also did not get a lot of help from his receivers as far as going to get the ball when it was a 50/50 shot.
I’m not going to lie - this was written with about ten minutes left in the third quarter and I’m simply waiting to fill in the blanks for the rest of the article because the article is a forgone conclusion. As I type this FSU just drilled a long field goal to make it 31-10.
If you are reading this you probably watched the game and don’t need me to rehash other than leaving a comment section to vent.
It sucked, and I just hope we haven’t mailed it in for the season. Let’s get back at it again this week and try to get a win at Louisville on Saturday.
