Quick Recap: Wake Forest Finds New Ways To Fail, Loses @Duke 24-21 On Last Second FG

If you’d told me going into this game that Wake Forest would get the ball off of turnovers in the red zone twice in the first half and that Mitch Griffis would go 16-19 for 241 yards and two rushing touchdowns, I’d have said Wake Forest wins. If you’d have told me that Duke’s Grayson Loftis would go 6-19 for 86 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT, I’d have said Wake wins HUGE. Yet somehow, some way, this team failed again in ways I have never seen in the Clawson era. Two personal fouls on defense on the last Duke drive. A third personal foul on defense on another drive. Multiple 3rd and 1 plays going backwards. Mitch Griffis balling out only to turn the ball over twice, both times when he was under the least amount of pressure he’d see all night. Matthew Dennis somehow missing two field goals for the first time in his career, both of them inside 40 yards.

I’ll leave the more detailed recap to Essex. I have NEVER, in damn near 20 seasons of watching Wake Forest football, seen a more consistently baffling, infuriating, comedy of errors group of games than this. Ever. There have been WORSE seasons. There have been seasons more bereft of talent. There have been seasons that felt more doomed from the start. But I’ve never seen one more full of inevitable but inexplicable futility than this season.

I’m done for tonight. On to the next.