NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Much of Vanderbilt’s good fortune, good play and good poise was washed out Saturday at FirstBank Stadium in a 45-25 loss at the hands of visiting Wake Forest.
The 23rd-ranked Demon Deacons beat Vanderbilt soundly in many areas, but the Commodores (2-1) also beat themselves plenty of times as well. Three turnovers and eight offensive drives that ended with a punt gave Vandy little chance to win its third straight game to begin the season.
“It’s unfortunate that we go into a game with clarity on what it’s going to take to beat a good opponent at home, and I thought the guys had the spirit and energy for it, but we lacked the discipline to carry through with our strategies and it caught up to us,” Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea said. “Today was an indicator of where we are. I don’t want to back away from the fact that Wake played a good game. It’s a good opponent and we played a sloppy first half that allowed them to distance themselves. We have to take the learning and grow from this and keep moving forward.”
Wake Forest quarterback Sam Hartman threw for 300 yards on 18 of 27 passing and completed four touchdowns and receiver A.T. Perry caught five balls for 142 yards and a score. Wake Forest also averaged 6.7 yards per play.
The Demon Deacons’ defense finished with five tackles for loss, a sack, five pass breakups, three quarterback hurries, an interception and forced two fumbles while holding the Dores to 294 yards of total offense.
Ray Davis was a lone bright spot for the Commodores by rushing for 87 yards and a touchdown and catching five balls for 21 yards. Quarterback Mike Wright was just 8 of 15 passing, threw a pick and lost two fumbles.
“The ball is the program, and we’ve to take care of it, and we didn’t today. That was actually our No. 1 offensive key and we failed to do that,” Vandy senior tight end Gavin Schoenwald said. “I think just having ownership over that – this is going to be an unbelievable game to watch the tape and learn from.
“There will be some key moments in the game that we can watch and say, ‘This happened because of this,’ or, ‘if this happened, this wouldn’t have.’ Just got to watch it and be better next week.”
Things began to go wrong for the black and gold after they had been so right in the early going.
Vandy had a 3-0 lead on a 35-yard Joseph Bulovas field goal and then got a fourth-down stop on the goal line by its defense. But mere seconds later Wright threw a pick-6, Vandy’s first turnover of the year, when his ill-advised pass bounced into the hands of Coby Davis who took it 31 yards the other direction.
Vanderbilt’s punted its next possession to set up Wake Forest on its own 32 and from there Hartman hit Perry on a 68-yard passing strike.
Wright fumbled away Vandy’s next series on his own 32 and two plays later Hartman dumped off a 2-yard touchdown pass to running back Christian Turner upping the score to 21-3 in a span of just less than six minutes of game clock.
Then, a lifeline.
Vanderbilt’s Cooper Lutz recovered a muffed punt at the Wake Forest 24 and, four plays later, Davis took a direct snap out of the shotgun and ran to his left before diving into the end zone cutting the deficit to 21-10.
But Wake Forest (2-0) scored on its first drive of the third quarter, a 10-play series that ended with Hartman’s 9-yard lob to Taylor Morin. That score took any wind out of the sails that the home team may have had.
Another lost Vanderbilt fumble, this one on a botched handoff exchange, led to a 17-yard Cameron Tite run for Wake Forest making it a 35-10 contest.
“We knew we couldn’t give their offensive extra possessions,” Lea said. “Giving up 21 points off turnovers is not going to be a formula against good teams, especially a good offense. The interception for a touchdown was just a momentum killer.”
“We have to look at ball security and decisions with the ball. That’s not just a player issue, that’s a coaching issue as well.”
The Commodores closed the gap to 35-18 late in the third quarter with an AJ Swann-to-Will Sheppard touchdown pass, but it was much too little, too late. Swann also Schoenwald on a 7-yard pass with just 2:09 to play providing the final margin.
Vanderbilt will try to regroup this week before it travels to Northern Illinois (1-0) for a 2:30 p.m. game Saturday.
“We do have a long way to go, but it’s about totally understanding what we just experienced, taking the good things that happened on the field and then the learning, the adversity that we faced – which is designed for us,” Lea said. “We don’t like the result, but we are going to focus on the things that today showed us and from that we’re going to evolve from it.
“We’ve got a great chance to do that on the road again next week. And that will be how we go.”
- Sheppard now has at least one touchdown reception in four straight games.
- Swann’s touchdown pass in the third quarter was the first of his career.
- Vanderbilt now has a takeaway in 12 straight games.
- A fourth-quarter sack by the Wake Forest defense was the first allowed by the Vanderbilt offense this season.
- Vandy opponents are now 1-for-9 on fourth-down conversions.
- Vandy leads the all-time series 10-7 over Wake Forest and is 65-63-6 against current members of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
- Vanderbilt’s 130 points through its first three games on the season is its most since scoring 137 in the first three games of the 1927 season.
- Attendance on Saturday was announced as 24,431.
— Chad Bishop covers Vanderbilt for VUCommodores.com.
Follow him @MrChadBishop.
