Darren Evans hurdles a Wake defender on a run during the game.
With evening approaching at halftime of Saturday’s game against Wake Forest, the shadows projected from the press areas and luxury suites of the West Stands at Lane Stadium and had blanketed the field and much of East Stands, allowing the all-too-familiar crisp air of autumn to settle into the seats for the first time this football season.
To note a sort of parallelism between the timely emergence of those natural seasonal conditions and the transition from the football team’s uncharacteristically rough start to the dominance exhibited in the first half against Wake Forest on the field Saturday would be farfetched.
Much like the flushing foliage and chilly weather that normally distinguishes a New River Valley October afternoon, the sort of superiority exemplified by the Hokies Saturday has become an expected sight this time of year, especially against an opponent of Wake Forest’s stature, to the point where Tech supporters could almost refer to it as second nature.
But before Saturday’s victory, they had yet to observe it this fall.
That’s not to say the bludgeoning was merely a repeat of the countless number of 21-plus point wins over conference opponents that have occurred on Worsham Field in the past decade and a half.
The manner in which the Hokies engineered the 52-21 win was anything but typical.
Neither team turned the ball over during the game, and a redshirt freshman Demon Deacon running back named Josh Harris ran all over a Tech corps that came into Saturday’s game ranked 37th in the nation in rush defense.
Harris rushed for 241 yards, the most Tech has ever allowed on the ground in a single contest.
Had it not been for Harris, who exceeded his previous career rushing game high by 164 yards, Wake Forest’s day would have been a lot bleaker as freshman quarterback Tanner Price put on one of the most horrific displays by a quarterback of any collegiate experience level in Lane Stadium's recent memory.
It’s almost unfathomable how Price was able to throw for more than 300 yards a week ago in the Demon Deacons’ 28-27 loss to Navy considering his ineffectiveness on Saturday. He continually under-threw passes to his receivers, who were at times no more than 10 yards away.
Price ended up completing three (one of which was a shovel pass) of 16 pass attempts. Why coach Jim Grobe did not go to his redshirt junior backup quarterback Skylar Jones before the start of the fourth quarter is a mystery.
On a day when defensive coordinator Bud Foster’s units lacked any sort of explosiveness, the Hokie offense stole the show and only needed 30 minutes to do so.
Quarterback Tyrod Taylor at times seemed like he could do no wrong, hitting his receivers at will.
Taylor’s pinpoint accuracy on his two-yard touchdown pass to Logan Thomas in the opening minutes of the first quarter foreshadowed a historically productive day for an offense that accumulated more than 600 yards when all was said and done.
Dyrell Roberts had 134 receiving yards, all in the first half, and shattered his previous career game high of 78 yards against Maryland last year.
As Taylor succeeded through the air, the backfield got it done on the ground as David Wilson and Darren Evans rushed for a combined 157 yards and three scores.
A version of this article appeared in the Oct 19 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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where is the photo gallery from the Wake Game?
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You mean the picture of Josh Harris, cuz' no one else from Wake played.
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