Wake Forest Hammers Merrimack, 77-0
· Yahoo Sports
The best thing you can say about the Wake Forest game against Merrimack is that it’s over, with the win, and no significant injuries. The Demon Deacons, without their starting quarterback, slapped Merrimack around in a game that was over at halftime. Wake beat Merrimack 77-0.
The Deacs scored seven times in the first half while shutting out Merrimack en route to a 49-0 lead at the half.
Visit esporist.com for more information.
Wake Forest Hammers Merrimack
Pizzella Gets His Shot
Steele Pizzella started at quarterback for Wake while Gio Lopez continued to nurse a right knee injury from last week’s win over Virginia. Keeping Lopez out of the game was more precautionary than anything, and clearly his services were not needed. Pizzella was 23 of 28 passing for 432 yards and three touchdowns (the first touchdown(s) of his college career). He also ran the ball seven times for 63 yards and a touchdown. And that was all in the first half. He was replaced by Gannon Jones in the second half. Jones also had a night of firsts, with an 87-yard touchdown pass to Drayden Dickman late in the third quarter. That one goes down as the second-longest touchdown reception in Wake Forest history. Carlos Hernandez owns a 93-yard reception for the record.
Wake Forest head coach Jake Dickert said after the game that they did not make significant changes in the offense with Pizzella running it instead of Lopez. “I think that was the best part of going into the game. We really said exactly how we run offense, that’s how we’re going to play it.” Dickert credited Pizzella as being smart enough to run the offense as is. “I thought we ran our offense the way we wanted to, at a high tempo rate.”
Among the touchdown drives for Pizzella in the first half were ones of 94 and 96 yards. He made it look easy.
Scoring Early and Often
Wake’s first drive of the game went 56 yards on seven plays in 1:51 with Ty Clark taking the direct snap and running it up the middle from a yard out. Wake went for the two-point conversion, and the pass was intercepted.
After Merrimack went out on only four plays, Wake responded quickly. Pizzella connected with Carlos Hernandez along the right side for a 38-yard touchdown pass. That was Pizzella’s first official college touchdown pass. The drive, in total, went 53 yards on two plays in 11 seconds for the 13-0 lead.
On its next drive, Merrimack’s punt pinned Wake down at its own four-yard line. Pizzella threw a nine-yard touchdown pass to Hernandez, capping a 96-yard scoring drive for the 20-0 first-quarter lead.
Photo courtesy: Jim Dedmon-Imagn ImagesJamar Searcy had a three-yard touchdown run up the middle on Wake’s first drive of the second quarter. The successful two-point conversion made up for the failed one earlier, and Pizzella had run up on a 28-0 lead with that 94-yard, seven-play drive that by Saturday night’s standards took a long time…all of 2:35.
Dickman scored on a jet sweep play from six yards out to make it 35-0 in the second quarter. But it was Pizzella, again, who commanded the drive with 40 passing yards in a drive that netted 56 yards.
Over at the Half
Pizzella led another touchdown drive, this one going 78 yards on just four plays. He threw a pass on a rope to Shanks on a post pattern from 30 yards out for the score. The drive took all of 1:07 off the clock and gave Wake a 42-0 lead.
Pizzella racked up more yards on the next drive. He connected with Jack Foley on a 73-yard pass play with the receiver picking up nearly 50 yards on the run after catch. Pizzella finished the drive, the half, and his night with a 13-yard touchdown run up the middle for the 49-0 lead.
Think it was decisive? Merrimack ran exactly one play of offense on the Wake Forest side of the field in the entire first half.
There was a highlight or two for Wake in the second half. Both teams successfully emerged from the locker room, so there was that. The beatdown resumed pretty quickly after that.
Shanks returned a punt 79 yards for a touchdown. That was the fifth-longest in school history. Josh Patterson had a 98-yard pick-six halfway through the fourth quarter to put the lead to 70-0. The touchdown was significant because, to that point, the Wake Forest offense had not been on the field at all in the fourth quarter. Merrimack’s offense was controlling the game clock up to that point. Wake took its first snaps on offense in the fourth quarter with 4:30 left in the game.
Ryan Henley scored a touchdown from a yard out with a minute-and-a-half left to cap the game scoring.
Dickert said the goal going into the game against an overmatched non-conference opponent was to take care of the team’s business like in any other game. “Just staying on business,” he said after the game. “I think our guys knew what we were capable of doing.” He said it was about playing to a certain level regardless of the opponent.
The Last Word
Wake came up three points shy of the biggest win of all time in the modern era. In 1915, the Deacs beat Camp Bragg (later to become Fort Bragg) 80-0. Wake rolled up 730 yards of total offense on Saturday night.
With the Merrimack game out of the way, it is back to business. Wake is 8-1 overall and 5-1 in ACC play. It has three conference games with the ACC title race on the line. The Deacs are in second place in the conference with road games at SMU and Georgia Tech coming up before the season finale at home against Duke.
Last Word will have more post-game coverage from the Wake Forest win over Merrimack on Sunday morning.
Main Image: Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images