Recap: Wake Forest Steamrolls Stanford 57-3

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It’s rare for Wake Forest to have a fun, stress-free, wire-to-wire win against a conference opponent in football, but that’s what took place today. The Deacs completely annihilated the Stanford Cardinal in every single phase of the game and ran up 57 points to put together their biggest conference win in the history of the program.

There’s really not much to even talk about for this game, because it was just complete dominance. Outside of maybe the Wake Forest fumble on the Stanford punt on the 4th play of the game, this one was all Deacs for all 4 quarters—Wake outgained the Cardinal 519 to 197, held Stanford to 49 rushing yards on 34 attempts (1.4 avg), and converted on 77% of their 3rd downs. The Deacs simply put the pedal to the floor and held it there until the end of the game.

Gio Lopez was once again phenomenal, finishing the game 20-27 for 265 yards and 2 touchdowns through the air and 88 rushing yards and 3 touchdowns on the ground. Those 5 total touchdowns were a career high for Lopez, and the first time a Wake Forest QB has accounted for 5 combined touchdowns since all the way back in… well it was Robby Ashford in the Mayo Bowl 6 games ago, so maybe not that far back.

Lopez wasn’t the only QB Stanford had no answer for—backup Steele Pizzella came in the game in the 4th quarter and just continued the beatdown. Pizzella finished the game 2-3 for 57 yards and added 21 rushing yards and his first career rushing touchdown (his rushing TD against Oregon State last season was called back for holding). That came right after he completed a 51 yard bomb to Devin Goldston.

Obviously, when a team scores 57 points, the offense is going to get a ton of attention, but the Wake Forest defense deserves a ton of credit for this one as well. The Deacs suffocated the Cardinal offense all game long, holding them to just 197 total yards and 3 points. Davis Warren, who threw for nearly 400 yards and 3 touchdowns last week against Georgia Tech, finished the game 19-30 for 136 yards and 1 interception. Warren was under constant pressure the whole game, and the Wake secondary gave him nowhere to throw the ball.

Wake finished the game with 4 sacks for 37 yards. When Stanford tried to run, it was as if they were running into a brick wall. Cardinal running back Micah Ford managed just 45 rushing yards on 16 carries, and he was met in the backfield seemingly every time he got the ball by a host of Wake Forest defenders. Davaughn Patterson led the way with 10 combined tackles, while linebackers Vincent Firenze and Frank Cusano added 8 and 6 respectively.

If this is how the Deacs are going to respond to not being ranked in the Top 25, I hope the AP voters continue to overlook Wake Forest and keep them off their polls. The blowout win moves Wake to 4-1 overall and sets up a big rivalry matchup in Raleigh next weekend—the Wolfpack will be looking to get their season back on schedule after taking down Louisville today. Let’s hope that game go as well as this one did.

That one was fun!

Go Deacs!

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