Searching for 60 minutes: Deacons look for complete-game effort vs. top-level opponent

It was only after coach Dave Clawson said it that Wendell Dunn put thought into a troubling trend for Wake Forest’s football team.

“I didn’t really think about it until we had breakfast with coach Clawson this Monday and he talked to us about it and I was like, ‘That’s so true.’ That’s us, we get up and we think, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be a win,’” said Dunn, a fifth-year senior who’s started the last 43 games for the Deacons.

Clawson said that during a weekly breakfast he has with the captains. It was roughly 36 hours after a 38-24 loss to Georgia Tech in which Wake Forest led 21-10 with a minute left in the first half.

Louisville presents the latest challenge for Wake Forest to put forth a complete, 60-minute effort.

That lead in Atlanta was squandered away in the second half for a bevy of reasons: inability to convert three fourth downs, penalties, misdiagnosis against Georgia Tech’s counter play twice among others.

But within that lies a deeper issue for the Deacons, who play the Cardinals at 12:20 p.m. today at BB&T Field.

“We talked about it with the captains, we talked about it with the team. And I think the gist of it is against these teams you can never, ever relax,” Clawson said. “I mean, we twice now have had two-score leads, against Florida State (12-3) and Georgia Tech (21-10), and what has been our immediate response?

“We went up two scores against Florida State, and we gave up a huge kick return that led to a touchdown. And our response against Georgia Tech is we make a bonehead play which gives them a field goal and we respond by snapping with the quarterback not there and giving them the ball at midfield and giving up…”

Clawson trailed off there, but his answer lasted 2 minutes, 32 seconds. It included the fourth-year Deacons coach rhetorically asking how many times has Wake Forest’s defense played with a two-score lead against an ACC team and pointing out that in the previous three seasons, if the offense put up 24 points, “you’re going to win, because we rarely scored over 20 points against an ACC team.”

He has a point. Twenty-four points from the Deacons would’ve meant wins against three teams in 2014 and 2016, while 24 points in 2015 would’ve meant one more win and a tie against Florida State.

In Clawson’s first two seasons — 16 ACC games — the Deacons held a double-digit lead once. A 10-0 lead in the first quarter against the Cardinals in 2015 turned into a 20-19 loss.

But in the Deacons’ last 12 conference games — this year’s four and last year’s eight — Wake Forest has held a double-digit lead in seven of them. The Deacons are 4-3 in those games, having lost the last two.

“When we’re in those games that every drive and every play could mean the game, we’ve been fine,” Clawson said. “But I just think, I don’t know if it’s mentally, there’s a pause and there’s a relaxation. … You can never, ever take your foot off the gas against good football teams. And right now, mentally, we do that.”

It’s become a battle against human nature for the Deacons. Preparation can take them only so far before it’s a matter of maintaining the focus it took to build leads against elite-caliber teams.

“We know we’re in these games and we’re up by double-digits, and it’s just a fact that we have to finish,” sophomore offensive tackle Jake Benzinger said. “And the only way we can finish is by … it goes back to preparation, but having that type of focus so that in the second half we don’t have those types of lapses at the end of drives, being able to finish drives in the third and fourth quarter.”

Starting fast is no longer a problem for the Deacons. Even in the loss at Clemson, after falling behind 14-0, Wake Forest settled in after the Tigers’ quick scores.

“I think we just have to keep our foot on the gas pedal in the second half and just finish,” redshirt freshman receiver Greg Dortch said. “Football is all about finishing, it’s not how you start, it’s how you’re finishing.

“I feel like we’ve done a great job starting games, but at this level … we’ve just got to finish.”

Source: journalnow