Beat Up Eagles Sputter Against No. 21 Wake Forest
Andy Backstrom (@andybackstrom)Publisher
Boston College quarterback Phil Jurkovec tossed the ball to running back Pat Garwo III, who then flipped it to wide receiver Zay Flowers for a reverse. While Flowers skirted toward the right sideline, Jurkovec laid out Wake Forest defensive lineman Miles Fox with an emphatic block.
It turned what might have been a tackle for loss into a highlight-reel touchdown.
Flowers juked out another Wake Forest D-Lineman, Jasheen Davis, and then used his left hand to support himself after falling backward in the process of evading the 294-pound Dion Bergan Jr. Flowers immediately shot up and sprinted to the opposite side of the turf. With a sea of green in front of him, the star wideout soared downfield and followed a Joey Luchetti block into the end zone.
It was the Eagles’ best play of the season, and it cut their third quarter deficit in half.
Well, it would have. If it counted.
There was a flag where the play started. Jurkovec pleaded but was slapped with a head scratching blindside block penalty. It was another bad break for BC in a week full of them. The Eagles were missing 10 players because of a flu outbreak that affected 32 players and sidelined 15, including Jurkovec, for Wednesday’s practice.
The already injury-depleted Eagles came out flat and, without that game-changing explosive, remained flat in the second half, registering seven three-and-outs in a 41-10 loss to Wake Forest.
BC (6-6, 2-6 ACC) has now lost 23 straight games to opponents ranked in the AP Top 25. No. 21 Wake Forest (10-2, 7-1), meanwhile, clinched the Atlantic Division title with the blowout win and is headed to its first ACC Championship since 2006.
BC logged seven total yards on its first two drives. The Eagles struggled to convert third downs all day. In fact, they were 1-of-10. Wake Forest, on the other hand, was 11-of-21.
“The plan to win was to limit their possessions,” BC head coach Jeff Hafley said. “And you don’t just do that by playing good defense. You do that by playing good offense and playing good on special teams. You can’t have three-and-outs.
“You have to use the clock, you have to put together drives, you have to score touchdowns.”
Quarterback Sam Hartman was the difference. Aside from a red zone interception, he was surgical in the first half, completing 16-of-25 passes for 186 yards and two scores.
The redshirt sophomore, who has now accounted for 44 total touchdowns this year, connected with wide receiver AT Perry for gains of 17 and 24 yards on the Demon Deacons’ second drive of the game. Hartman called his own number at the goal line, though, surging forward for a seven-yard rushing touchdown to cap a 10-play, 71-yard series and hand Wake Forest a 7-0 lead.
BC’s defense dug deep and came up with some critical stops against a Demon Deacons team that came into this week ranked fourth nationally in scoring offense. The first was when true freshman cornerback CJ Burton—filling in for Josh DeBerry at nickel—broke up a third down pass intended for Jaquarii Roberson.
But after the Eagles got the ball back, they froze. Jurkovec didn’t put enough juice on a deep ball for Flowers, and it was picked off by Wake Forest cornerback Ja’Sir Taylor.
Jurkovec was off all day. He was underthrowing and overthrowing receivers. The 6-foot-5 dual-threat quarterback finished 3-of-11 for 19 passing yards while piling up 66 rushing yards on 11 carries.
The Demon Deacons cashed in on BC’s first of three turnovers as Hartman slid up in the pocket after riding his running back and faking the handoff. Then he delivered a pass to Perry, who danced around the Eagles’ secondary and dove toward the pylon for six.
“It’s unique really,” BC defensive end Marcus Valdez said of Wake Forest’s slow-mesh, RPO offense. “To what we play at least. From what I’ve seen in college football. … You’ve gotta hold your gap and put the linebackers in a bind.”
Since Jurkovec wasn’t moving the chains with his arm, he turned to his legs. And he strung together a pair of chunk runs, the first of which was a 28-yard gainer on the zone-read. BC’s one and only third down conversion of the game came in the red zone on that drive. It was 3rd-and-10, and Jurkovec calmly stayed in the pocket and threw his best pass of the game: a 15-yard dot to tight Trae Barry.
Barry had played just 14 snaps the previous week against Florida State and left Saturday’s game early with an ankle injury. He was responsible for 15 of BC’s 19 receiving yards.
A Bryce Steele face mask penalty on Taylor Morin’s 39-yard kickoff return catapulted Wake Forest into Eagles territory again. The Demon Deacons appeared to have new reservations for six before an unnecessary roughness infraction pushed them back. Ultimately, Wake Forest had to settle for a 45-yard Nick Sciba field goal, bumping its lead to 17-7.
Garwo surpassed the 1,000-yard mark on the ground the following drive, and BC marched all the way down to the Demon Deacons’ 5-yard line, thanks to a couple of 14-plus-yard runs from Jurkovec. That’s where the Eagles came to a screeching halt and trotted out Connor Lytton for a 23-yard field goal.
With a Valdez sack forcing an Ivan Mora punt on Wake Forest’s ensuing series, the momentum had swung BC’s way. That shift was fleeting, however.
The next play, in fact, Demon Deacons edge rusher Rondell Bothroyd stripped Jurkovec. Wake Forest recovered the fumble and took over in the red zone. Luckily for BC, Hartman proceeded to make his biggest mistake of the game.
Facing a 3rd-and-6, he took a shot for the left corner of the end zone. Fourth-year BC starting cornerback Brandon Sebastian high pointed the ball, recording his fourth interception of the season.
It was Wake Forest’s ninth turnover in its last four games.
Once again, though, the Eagles squandered another offensive opportunity. They couldn’t even move the chains. The Demon Deacons started to key on BC’s increasingly one-dimensional attack, especially Jurkovec’s reads in the quarterback run game.
Wake Forest’s average starting field position was its own 46-yard line. This time, the Demon Deacons got the ball at the 50, and Hartman piloted their two-minute offense, leading a touchdown drive in 1:59. It culminated in a seven-yard pass to Perry, who reached the paint for the second time.
“To beat that team you need to make them drive the length of the field,” Hafely said. “We failed to do that as a team.”
Wake Forest took a 24-10 advantage into intermission, and things just got worse from there for BC. Travis Levy muffed the second-half kickoff. And Flowers’ jaw-dropping, 73-yard touchdown was wiped off the board because of the highly-scrutinized blindside block penalty.
“I’d just rather not comment on anything on the officials right now because I’d probably say something that I will regret, and I don’t want to do that today,” Hafley said. “That was an unbelievable play. I thought it was a good block.”
The Demon Deacons went three-and-out on their next series, yet Mora pinned BC at its 2-yard line. A Jake Byczko face mask penalty on the following 18-yard Morin punt return slingshotted Wake Forest to the Eagles’ 14. BC’s defense held, and Sciba drilled a 25-yard field goal.
Except, without any substance of offense, the Eagles were just delaying the inevitable on that side of the ball. Wake Forest went up 34-10 with a three-yard Christian Turner touchdown run. The play that got the Demon Deacons in position for that score was a 32-yard Hartman-Roberson connection.
Trailing by 24 points, Jurkovec heaved up a desperate pass for Flowers, who was double covered. Malik Mustapha was there for the Wake Forest interception. Like the first quarter, the Demon Deacons scored points off a Jurkovec pick. Hartman rolled right and found tight end Blake Whiteheart for a two-yard score, polishing off a 14-play, 61-yard drive that gobbled up 6:07.
Jurkovec didn’t throw another pass, and Emmett Morehead didn’t fare any better. The fourth quarter was uneventful as the teams combined for 33 total yards, and Wake Forest held the ball for all but a minute and a half of the period. The Demon Deacons even put in true freshman quarterback Mitch Griffis.
It was a humiliating end to Senior Day for BC, a program that’s taken a step back in 2021 after so much promise surrounded the second year of the Hafley era.
It’s not over yet. The Eagles still have a bowl game ahead of them. Eight wins are off the table, though, and BC’s seven-year drought without a win over an AP-ranked opponent is likely going to be renewed another season.
Instead, Wake Forest is the small, private ACC school celebrating an Atlantic Division title in Alumni Stadium this year.
