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Wake Forest made Stanford's 45-6 loss to Miami and a 35-7 loss to Duke look whimsical, taking down the Cardinal 57-3 on Saturday morning. The loss drops Stanford to 2-3 with a tough road matchup against No. 3 Notre Dame awaiting them next week. 

Where Miami and Duke took their feet off the gas in the second half, Wake Forest kept pushing, exploiting every mismatch and demoralizing Stanford fans back in the Bay Area.

When the Cardinal have been rolling during their two wins, they have looked like they can hang with anybody. When they've struggled in their three losses, they make fans question whether they'll ever get another stop on defense or a first down on offense. 

Even in that Miami game against one of the top teams in the country, there were positive takeaways. The line didn't protect Davis Warren, and he had to get rid of the ball quickly, but the offense was done in more by dropped passes and backbreaking penalties that stalled drives.

They were at least able to move the ball a little bit. 

With a noon kickoff against Wake Forest (9 a.m. body clock for the Cardinal), Stanford earned just 197 yards of total offense. Warren went 19-30 for 136 yards and threw his first interception of the season. That INT was deflected off the intended receiver's foot and bounced into the air for the pick, so it was more of a fluke turnover.

That interception also came on fourth down and pushed the Demon Deacons a couple of yards further back than a regular incompletion would have. That may have been the brightest spot of the entire game. 

The biggest issue with the offense — and this happened a couple of times in the game — came on third-down plays. In the second quarter with the Cardinal down 22-3, Stanford faced a 3rd and 12 from its own 38 with 1:45 left on the clock.

The pass that was thrown went just four yards to Nico Brown, who was tackled immediately. Stanford punted, and Wake Forest scored another touchdown before the half to go up 29-3. 

The issue wasn't that Wake scored, but rather that Stanford called that play on third down. The team has been having trouble moving the ball and had a chance to change that momentum a little bit before the break. Instead, the pass traveled just four yards, and Stanford was stopped eight yards shy of the first down. 

At the very least the throw should have been at, near, or past the first-down marker. 

We should also acknowledge that it looked like Wake Forest was locking up Stanford receivers down the field all game, so even when Warren had time, he didn't have any options. While that makes the third-down play difficult, it shouldn't make it impossible to get closer to the sticks. 

Stanford's Defense

Wake Forest ended up with 519 total yards against the Cardinal defense, with Demon Deacon quarterbacks going 22-30 for 322 yards. Gio Lopez accounted for 265 of those yards and a pair of touchdowns through the air and added 88 rushing yards and another three touchdowns on the ground. He was a force Stanford didn't have an answer for. 

The defense as a whole had trouble tackling all game. With linebackers Matt Rose and Jahsiah Galvan out, Wake Forest was able to complete passes at will, and once they were complete, nobody was around to stop them. They averaged 7.7 yards per play in the game. 

Stanford's offense averaged just 2.9. 

The Cardinal just couldn't get a stop, as Wake Forest converted 10-of-13 third downs. 

With Notre Dame looming next week, it's tough to see dramatic improvements coming in the next seven days. Keeping the Fightin' Irish in the building would be a start. 

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