Wake Forest Football: Week 11 PFF Grades Roundup
Wake Forest lost their third straight game on Saturday night, falling in a 36-34 shootout to UNC. The Deacs showed flashes on both sides of the ball in the defeat — here’s how PFF graded each unit in Wake’s fourth loss of the season.
READ: ACC Football Power Rankings: Week 12
Quarterbacks:
- Sam Hartman- 73.2
Hartman bounced back nicely for most of Saturday’s contest, throwing for 321 yards and four TDs. He made some fantastic throws, including a laser that hit a wide open Donavon Greene perfectly in stride for a 60-yard TD in the second half. His biggest hiccup came with just over four minutes to go in the game. Wake Forest had the ball, led by a point and seemed poised to put the game away before Hartman threw an interception to UNC safety Cam’Ron Kelly that would set up the Tar Heels’ game-winning field goal. In terms of PFF grade, it wasn’t a bad outing for Hartman — this week’s mark was his fourth-highest of the season.
READ: Takeaways from Wake Forest's heartbreaking loss to UNC
Running Backs:
- Justice Ellison- 73.7
- Quinton Cooley- 69.2
- Christian Turner- 58.5
The Deacs’ run game came back to life a bit against the Tar Heels. Ellison ran efficiently, toting the ball 16 times for 81 yards (5.1 ypc). Cooley was solid in a limited role, finishing with 6 carries for 36 yards (6.0 ypc). Turner was the least efficient of the group (12 carries, 41 yards, 3.4 ypc), but scored the group’s lone touchdown, a dive across the goal line on 4th and goal in the second quarter. These are the third-highest grades of the season for Ellison and Cooley, and the second-lowest for Turner.
READ: Unit Grades from Wake Forest's loss to UNC
Pass Catchers:
- Taylor Morin- 89.5
- Ke’Shawn Williams- 79.5
- Donavon Greene- 70.8
Taylor Morin was fantastic against the Tar Heels, finishing with five catches, 101 yards and a touchdown. Arguably his most impactful non-scoring play of the game came on a 4th-and-3 in the first half — Morin caught a pass just past the sticks and made several men miss, turning a short gain into a 22-yarder that brought Wake inside the UNC 10. The other two members of this trio made explosive plays as well — Williams had a crucial 40-yard catch that set up a Christian Turner touchdown and Greene hauled in a 60-yard TD bomb from Hartman. This is Morin’s highest grade of the season, Williams’ third-highest and Greene’s fourth-highest.
READ: Key Stats from Wake Forest's 36-34 loss to UNC
Offensive Line:
- Loic Ngassam Nya- 71.5
- DeVonte Gordon- 67.7
- Spencer Clapp- 65.8
The offensive line was much more effective in both run and pass protection this week — Hartman was sacked just one time and the team rushed for over four yards per carry. This was a nice bounce-back performance after an NC State outing which yielded 17 rushing yards on 25 total attempts. This was Ngassam Nya’s second-highest mark of the year, Clapp’s third-highest and middle of the pack for Gordon.
Defensive Line:
- Kobie Turner- 79.3
- Tyler Williams- 78.4
- Kevin Pointer- 74.8
- Jasheen Davis- 72.1
This was by far Wake’s highest-graded defensive unit — four of the top five defensive grades on the team came from the D-line. All four of these players had run defense grades over 67 and tackling grades over 70. I included Jasheen Davis on this list because he accounted for two of Wake Forest’s three sacks and 2.5 of the team’s five tackles for loss. Turner has graded at 70 or higher in nine of Wake’s ten games this season. These grades are Williams’ third-highest, Pointer’s second-highest and Davis’ fourth-highest of the season.
Linebackers:
- Chase Jones- 59.7
- Ryan Smenda Jr.- 59.0
The other two linebackers that saw action in this one — Dylan Hazen and Quincy Bryant — combined for just 13 total snaps, so I didn’t include them in this list. Smenda and Jones did a lot of the defense’s heavy lifting, finishing with 27 tackles (10 solo) and one TFL between the two of them. Smenda has now been credited with a whopping 32 tackles in two weeks and is up to 91 on the season. Jones now has 55 and 25 solo tackles. This is the second-lowest grade of the season for Smenda and the third-lowest for Jones — Smenda’s coverage grade and Jones’ tackling grade were both below 50.
Defensive Backs:
- J.J. Roberts- 75.8
- DaShawn Jones- 70.6
- Gavin Holmes- 67.8
This group was bitten badly by the injury bug against UNC — Malik Mustapha was out the whole game due to an undisclosed injury and Caelen Carson did not return to action after halftime. As a result, the talented UNC receiving corps had a field day, led by a 154-yard, three-touchdown performance from star wideout Josh Downs. This group struggled to contain Drake Maye, who threw for 448 yards and three touchdowns. This is Roberts’ highest grade of the year, the third-highest for Jones and middle of the pack for Holmes.
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