It went as expected. Sometimes it is that simple. The game was scheduled years ago when Ole Miss was a second-tier team in the SEC. Wake longs for those good ol’ days. Now very few teams in the country can stay with the fifth-ranked Rebels. And Wake Forest, it turns out, is not one of them. Ole Miss dismantles Wake Forest 40-6 in Winston-Salem to remain undefeated.
There were moments when Wake did not play badly and looked like they could compete with Ole Miss. There just weren’t nearly enough of them.
“We just got our ass kicked for three-and-a-half hours,” head coach Dave Clawson said after the game.
Ole Miss Starts Fast
Ole Miss just had too much offense and put it on display early and often Saturday night. Jaxson Dart is leading the country in total passing yards and averaging 397 yards per game. He fell just shy of that against his team’s first Power Four opponent of the season. That’s not to say there was not plenty of Rebels’ offense.
Ole Miss moved 75 yards downfield on its first drive of the game on just five plays and using only 1:23 off the clock. The middle of the field was wide open for the Ole Miss receivers and Dart took easy advantage of it. The drive was capped off by a 25-yard touchdown run by Henry Parrish, Jr.
Wake’s first possession response was a series that netted seven yards and a punt. The Demon Deacons would put first-quarter points on the board. Quarterback Hank Bachmeier picked up 36 yards passing on two throws. But the drive stalled and the Deacs settled for a 42-yard Matthew Dennis field goal to make it 7-3.
Ole Miss’s response was a two-play touchdown drive. Receiver Jordan Watkins got 10 yards behind the Wake secondary on a busted coverage play and scored on the 75-yard touchdown pass play for the 14-3 lead. Two plays, 75 yards, and 34 seconds burned off the clock. It was the Ole Miss offense early on.
The Gap Grows
The lead grew to 20-3 in the first quarter. Parrish had a 22-yard touchdown run right up the middle. Again, the blows were coming quickly. Ole Miss needed just 1:56 to run seven plays and go 63 yards for the score.
Wake held Ole Miss to just a field goal the rest of the half. It had to feel like some sort of victory. The Ole Miss drive converted on six straight second down plays and had only one-third down the entire time, and that came on the 15th play of the drive. With Ole Miss down at the Wake four-yard line, the Rebels got called for an unsportsmanlike penalty. They had to settle for a Caden Davis 33-yard field goal and the 23-3 lead.
Usually, the student section leaves at halftime and does not come back. They didn’t even make it that long in this game.
Wake put together a viable drive to respond, but two penalties pushed them out of viable play range and they settled for a 37-yard Dennis field goal for the 23-6 halftime score.
The Numbers Didn’t Lie
As if the pace of play, the efficiency of the Ole Miss offense, and the score did not make it clear enough, the halftime stats did. Ole Miss had 385 yards of total offense to 155 for Wake. The Rebels were averaging eight-and-a-half yards per play, and Wake was getting just over four. Dart was 16-21 for 258 yards and a touchdown. And we were just at halftime.
Four minutes into the third quarter, Wake put together a viable drive that would have gone a long way to making the score more competitive. They were even helped by an Ole Miss penalty on fourth and 10. Down by so much, Clawson had no choice but to go for it on fourth and goal from the four. But Bachmeier’s pass, intended for Morin was too high and out the back of the end zone. It was the closest Wake would come again the rest of the night.
On the ensuing drive, Ole Miss drove the length of the field, 96 yards, and burned a “lengthy” 4:49 off the clock. The Rebels had it third and 11 from the Wake 13-yard line. Dart pulled it on a delayed draw and ran the 13 yards for the touchdown. At 30-6 going into the fourth quarter, the game was well out of reach.
How bad did it get? Wake’s longest run of the night was a 14-yard carry by Ty Clark in the fourth quarter. And the play ended with Clark fumbling and Ole Miss recovering. Two plays later Dart threw a 31-yard touchdown pass to Antwane Wells, Jr. who made a great one-handed catch going into the end zone.
Clawson
“They are what everyone thinks they are,” Clawson said of Ole Miss. “Right now that football team is at a different level than we are.”
Ole Miss piled up 650 yards of total offense Saturday night to 311 for Wake Forest. Dart finished the game 26 of 34 for 377 yards, two touchdowns, and one interception. Bachmeier finished 22 of 39 for 239 yards.
“They are a lot more talented than us across the board,” Clawson said. A point of emphasis from him all week to the media has been about the significant resources Ole Miss has, (translation: Collective/NIL cash). Saturday night he was complimentary of how they use the resources. He pointed out that Wake, in his assessment, played hard and had moments that the Demon Deacons can build from. But he termed the game, “A mismatch.”
Wake falls to 1-2 on the season and has a bye next week before facing Louisiana at home in two weeks. Because of the off week next weekend, the players will get some extra time off. The players will get Sunday off. Monday will be the film review and then a couple of practices during the week before giving the players a couple of days off.
