Great ending to a great season
The Wake Forest Demon Deacons are Duke’s Mayo Bowl Champs! Led by a career night from senior QB Robby Ashford, the Deacs took down the Mississippi State Bulldogs 43-29 to claim one of the most coveted rewards in all of college football—4.5 gallons of mayonnaise.
This game started off fast. The Bulldogs won the coin toss, and clearly had a plan of what they wanted to do to open the game. MSU chose to receive the opening kick, and on the first play of the game, Kamario Taylor connected with Brenen Thompson for a 51 yard bomb through the air that took them all the way to the Wake Forest 24 yard line. The Deacon defense recovered quickly from the opening haymaker, and managed to hold the Bulldogs to a field goal.
Then it was Wake’s turn. On the ensuing kickoff, freshman Koredell Bartley received the first kick off of his collegiate career at the edge of the goal line and started running—he didn’t stop until he covered 100 yards and made it to the other endzone to put the Deacs on the board.
I don’t think anyone could really ask for a better result on their first ever kick return.
The Deacs found the endzone a second time in the first quarter after a 9 play 75-yard drive that ended with a 14-yard touchdown pass from Robby Ashford to Kamrean Johnson to give Wake a 15-6 lead.
That was all the scoring the Deacs managed in the first half, unfortunately. Wake continually shot themselves in the foot with penalties over the first 2 quarters—it felt like anytime they had a positive play, they would get backed right back up with a false start or some other penalty. Wake finished the first half with 6 penalties for 50 yards.
Just as it looked like Wake was about to move the ball into field goal range to add 3 more points before the end of the half, Ashford threw one of his worst passes of the night straight to Mississippi State’s Brylan Lanier for his only turnover of the game. As with most of the season, Wake still went into the half with a 15-9 lead thanks to the strong play of the defense, which kept the Bulldogs out of the endzone in the first half.
Ashford quickly made up for his mistake, hitting freshman Jack Foley for a 64-yard touchdown bomb on Wake’s first possession of the 2nd half.
Like with Bartley’s kickoff return, this big play was Foley’s first collegiate catch. One of the best parts of bowl games is that the games don’t count against the 4 game limit for redshirting, which means that the younger guys get a chance to go out and show what they can do. Wake Forest’s underclassman certainly made the most of their chances tonight.
Robby Ashford added his 3rd touchdown of the night on a 2-yard run with 4 minutes left in the 3rd quarter to give the Deacs a 30-12 lead, and Wake was able to comfortably cruise to a win, right? Of course not, Wake would never let us off the hook that easily. As the 3rd quarter expired, MSU QB Kamario Taylor leaped into the endzone to give the Bulldogs their first touchdown of the game. One Wake Forest punt later, Taylor connected with Sanfrisco Magee for a 42-yard touchdown pass, and the Deacon lead was reduced to just 3 points in the span of about 4 minutes.
With the momentum completely shifted in MSU’s favor and the Deacs desperately needing points, Robby Ashford delivered. In the final game of his career, Ashford orchestrated an impressive 10 play, 63-yard drive, eating over 6 minutes of clock and ending with him running it into the endzone from the 1 yard line for his 4th score of the game. That touchdown should have put the game out of reach, but in Wake’s quest to make every game a cardiac thriller, the extra point was blocked and taken all the way back by the Bulldogs for 2 points. Instead of a 10 point lead with 4 minutes remaining, MSU only trailed by 7 and needed just 1 score to tie the game.
That is when the Wake Forest defense once again stepped up. The Bulldogs got the ball back at the 25 yard line, and went absolutely nowhere. In 3 plays, the Deacs held MSU to -1 net yards and used up a minute and a half of the remaining game time. With 3 timeouts and the 2 minute timeout in their pocket, Mississippi State made the decision to punt the ball back to Wake Forest. That proved to be a mistake.
After a couple of runs for a net of 3 yards, the Deacs faced a crucial 3rd and 7 clinging to that 7-point lead. Needing to extend the drive, Wake Forest Offensive Coordinator Rob Ezell went deep into his bag of play calls and pulled out one that I don’t think we had seen so far this year—a shovel pass.
The play worked to perfection, and Wake didn’t just get the first down, Ty Clark III took the pass 62 yards to the house to give the Deacs a 43-29 lead. That would ultimately seal the game for Wake.
This game was the cherry on top to a fantastic first year under Jake Dickert for the Deacs. Wake won their 9th game of the season for just the 4th time in program history and picked up their first bowl win since 2022. The Deacs also moved the ACC to 4-2 in bowls against Power 4 conferences, while handing the SEC their 5th loss in such games—hopefully that will help the conference’s case for playoff berths in the future (I won’t hold my breath). It was also just a great way to close out the careers of all of the seniors, whether they be recent transfers or long time Deacs. Robby Ashford was named MVP with 353 total yards of offense and a career high 5 total touchdowns. He definitely had a lot of ups and downs throughout his long career, so it was nice to see him be able to go out on top. Nick Andersen—who will forever be a Wake Forest legend to me—capped off his incredible career with 12 total tackles and 1 sack, giving him over 100 tackles for the 2nd straight season. It just won’t feel the same next year without seeing his signature crop-top jersey flying all over the field and making big hits.
Year 1 was a triumphant success for Jake Dickert at Wake Forest, and I cannot wait to see how high the Deacs can go in year 2.
Go Deacs!
Category: General Sports
