demon deacons hold hokies in winston-salem

Chris Hirons

October 24, 2020

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Wake Forest’s seven-minute drive at the end of the first half beat the No. 19 Virginia Tech defense almost lifeless. Three fourth-down conversions killed any sort of momentum Tech built as it dropped Saturday afternoon’s game in Winston-Salem 23-16.

Wake Forest running back Kenneth Walker’s six-yard score with a minute left in the first half broke the 10-10 tie to put the Demon Deacons out in front for good. The Wake Forest offense received some help with a facemask that gave the Deacons an extra 15 yards on a successful fourth down conversion.

All-around, the Hokies committed too many penalties, didn’t execute when the opportunities presented themselves and turnovers killed any chance Virginia Tech had at a comeback late against Wake Forest.

“It’s my responsibility to get the team out there and ready to play,” head coach Justin Fuente said after the loss. “Unforced penalties hurt, I was disappointed with those. It's been uncharacteristic of us, we can't hand people things, it's too competitive of a league."

On the day, the Hokies committed 10 penalties, giving Wake Forest four first downs and 112 yards, the most since Fuente took over as head coach. Mostly, those penalties were personal fouls such as a few late hits, unsportsmanlike conducts and a targeting call by defensive lineman Jarrod Hewitt.

“We're not going to write [the penalties] off,” Fuente said. “Our ass is going to address it. We can’t write it off. We're not going to play football like that.”

It was a tale of two games in terms of the turnover battle for VT. Last week the defense forced five of them, while this week the defense didn’t recover a single turnover. Rather, the offense took a step back this week, losing the ball three times — all on Hendon Hooker interceptions. Ironically, Wake Forest walk-on Nick Andersen picked Hooker off all three times.

“It's not the norm, but it is part of the game,” Hooker said. The Hokies’ quarterback scored the lone Hokie touchdown and threw for 223 yards and ran for another 98. “I'm just going to keep my head down and keep working, keep a positive attitude and lift my teammates up.”

The Virginia Tech offense clicked everywhere but the redzone, outgaining Wake Forest 433-346. Inside the 25-yard line, however, the Hokies ran 17 plays and only came away with six points — all scored on Brian Johnson field goals.

"We turned the ball over," Fuente said when asked about the cause of the red zone problems. "They play a little bit of a bend-but-don't break defense, but they came out and challenged us a little more on the outside. We didn't really make any big plays, I thought, in the passing game. We ran the ball still OK [223 yards rushing] against a pretty loaded box, but we really didn't make very many plays, I feel like, throwing the ball.

“We'll get to the film tomorrow and figure out how to get better,” running back Khalil Herbert said. Herbert only ran for 64 yards on 14 carries after being boxed in by Wake Forest’s talented front seven. He fell well short of his average yards-per-game mark of the season, which sat at 148 before Saturday’s game.

Though the offense faltered, the defense did at times as well, as it allowed the Deacons to run for 236 yards, while Wake Forest running back Christian Beal-Smith led the game in rushing with 129. Missed tackles were seen everywhere - the line of scrimmage, in the second level and all the way back to the secondary. The Demon Deacons ran through Virginia Tech’s defense.

“At times, we were pretty good [at stopping the run], and other times we didn’t establish the line of scrimmage,” Fuente said. “There were times where we couldn’t bring them down. The statistic I’m most concerned about is scoring more points than the other team, not the rushing totals.”

In the first quarter, Wake Forest jumped out to a quick 10-0 lead off of a scramble by quarterback Sam Hartman, who threw for 110 yards and ran for 43 on Saturday, and a 41-yard field goal by Nick Sciba.

After a scoreless first quarter from the Hokies’ offense, Tech struck back in the second, knotting the score at 10 on a 28-yard field goal from Johnson and a 39-yard strike from Hooker to tight end James Mitchell, who finished the game with three catches for 51 yards.

Wake Forest took possession midway through the second quarter and held onto it until the last minute, scoring a six-yard touchdown to cap off a 17-play, 75-yard drive to put the Deacons up 17-10. The Hokies tried to answer back before the half ended but Hooker threw the first of his three interceptions in the endzone to close out the half.

“We were a little out of position,” lineback Rayshard Ashby said. “We were out of our gaps in the first half.”

On the first possession of the second half, Wake Forest once again marched down the field. A 46-yard field goal from Sciba, his second of three on the day, capped a seven-play drive to extend Wake Forest’s lead to 20-10. With a minute left in the third quarter, Virginia Tech ran nine plays for 61 yards, only mustering another Johnson field goal to pull within seven, 20-13.

The fourth quarter went the same way the third quarter did with both teams trading a field goal each to keep the game within Tech’s reach 23-16. After a failed onside kick attempt with a two-and-a-half-minutes left, VT forced a Wake Forest punt, which the team downed at Tech’s own two-yard line. Trying to muster a comeback with a 98-yard drive less than a minute left, the Hokies were desperate. With less than 15 seconds left and the ball only sitting at the Virginia Tech 16, Hooker took a shot down the field.

The ball was caught on the other side of the 50 by WF’s Andersen, his third interception of the day and guarantee to earn NCAA Defensive Player of the Week.

After a kneel down, Virginia Tech’s immediate focus became next week’s matchup on Halloween in Kentucky against Louisville at 4 p.m.

“I hate losing, I hate it,” center Brock Hoffman said. “It's the worst thing in the world. We're a really talented team, but we're not going to win games with turnovers and penalties."