Unit Grades from Wake Forest's 34-31 loss to Duke

The defense struggled in the Deacs' fifth loss of the season

Wake Forest ended the 2022 regular season on a sour note, losing to in-state rival Duke 34-31 and falling to 7-5 on the year. The Deacs made big plays on both sides of the ball, but ultimately couldn’t find a way to pull out the victory on the road. Here’s how we graded each unit in the loss:

Offense: B+

The offense executed well for the most part against Duke — Sam Hartman threw for 347 yards and three touchdowns and even led a go-ahead touchdown drive late in the fourth quarter. The receivers generally performed well in the absence of Jahmal Banks, as top targets A.T. Perry and Taylor Morin combined for 14 catches, 180 yards and two big touchdowns. The unit played well enough to hold a 31-27 lead deep in the fourth quarter.

However, Warren Ruggiero’s unit sputtered and failed to execute at two key points late in the game. With around four minutes to go in the final frame, Wake got the ball back up four points with a chance to close out the game. They needed two first downs to force Duke to exhaust all their timeouts and run out the clock. The Deacs made one first down without much trouble, but facing a 3rd-and-2 a few plays later, Sam Hartman was sacked and Wake was forced to punt.

Duke scored a quick touchdown to retake the lead, and Wake’s offense had another chance to lead a game-sealing drive or at least extend the game with a field goal. With two minutes to go and all three timeouts, Wake failed to gain a single yard and Hartman threw a deep-ball interception on fourth down.

The offense played a good game, but failure to execute late in the contest once again held this unit back from putting the team in a position to win. That has been the story of this season — the Deacs are just 1-3 in one-score games.

Defense: C

The defense was again missing one of their most impactful players in safety Malik Mustapha, but the secondary simply didn’t get the job done. Riley Leonard torched Brad Lambert’s group for 391 yards and four touchdowns and didn’t throw an incompletion until the second quarter. Duke’s wide receiver trio of Jalon Calhoun, Jordan Moore and Sahmir Hagans combined for 27 catches, 389 yards and four touchdowns. Leonard threw seven completions of 20-plus yards as the Deacs once again struggled to stop the big play.

There were some bright spots in the performance — late in the game, with Wake up 31-27 and Duke driving, Jermal Martin Jr. made a fantastic play on the ball and picked off Leonard in the end zone. However, when the Wake Forest offense failed to mount a scoring drive and punted it back to Duke, the Blue Devils covered 65 yards and reached the end zone in just three plays after a roughing the passer penalty and two long completions.

Dave Clawson addressed the play of the defense after the game, speaking on some of the issues that have haunted that side of the ball all season:

“It’s our fundamentals,” he said. “We didn’t make plays on the perimeter this year. We went into the season believing that would become a position of strength for us. It certainly played out that that wasn’t the case.”

Special Teams: B+

This group was behind the eight-ball from the beginning, with starting punter and kickoff specialist Ivan Mora out due to injury. Matthew Dennis understandably struggled in punting relief, averaging just 30 yards per kick. The Deacs’ kickoff coverage was lacking at times as well — they gave up a few long returns including a 35-yarder to Jaylen Stinson.

Dennis was perfect on field goals (1/1) and extra points (4/4). Overall, this unit performed about as well as could be expected given the personnel shortages they faced.

Coaching: C

I always think it’s tough to evaluate the performance of Dave Clawson and his staff after hard-fought games like Saturday’s. But in the end, Wake Forest just didn’t have enough in the tank to remain disciplined for all four quarters and come away with the win.

On defense, the secondary made the same mistakes all game, losing contested balls on the perimeter and leaving receivers open in the middle of the field. Sure enough, this came back to bite them late, when Lambert’s group couldn’t get a stop and gave up two long completions to cough up the lead.

When Wake Forest had the ball with two minutes left in the game trailing by three, the Deacs faced a decisive 3rd and 2 in their own territory. They elected to pass, and Sam Hartman took a sack. The play call wasn’t necessarily the problem — Duke had been blitzing frequently and the set should have worked. But something went awry and the play collapsed.

That’s the issue — this year’s team has lacked the sharpness necessary to come away with close game victories. They were 3-1 in one score games last year and fell to 1-3 in 2022 in such contests after Saturday’s loss. The team seems to be lacking some of the killer instinct they had last season.

Clawson was introspective after the game, looking back to where things might have gone wrong for this team.

“I don’t know how in terms of how I managed this team in spring and fall camp, looking back, was the best way,” he said. “Anytime things don’t go well, you have to be self-critical and look in the mirror and say, ‘if I had it over, what would I do differently?’ When I’ve had a chance to reflect, there’s situations that, just going back to our preparation, [that] I think I would’ve handled differently.”

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