Wake Forest Hits Three Long Scores and Cruises Past Akron
Three touchdown passes, 177 yards between them. That was most of the game. Gio Lopez hit Kam Shanks from 27 yards in the first quarter, then Antonio Meeks from 72 and Carlos Hernandez from 78 in the second, and Wake Forest led 28-0 before Akron had a single point on the way to a 38-16 win.
Connor Calvert chipped in field goals of 25, 29 and 26 yards. Akron finally got on the board with a 28-yard field goal from Matthew Schramm with 1:35 left in the half, and it was 31-3 when the third quarter ended. Deuce Lawrence's 4-yard run early in the fourth made it 38-3, and that was the last Wake Forest score.
Akron's two late touchdowns, both thrown by Brayden Roggow, made the final look kinder than the game was. He hit Elijah Alexander from 2 yards out with 7:06 left and Titus Myers from 4 yards with 29 seconds left (the extra point failed, naturally). Roggow was 7 for 7 for 45 yards, so he did not miss, he just did not throw much.
The yardage says it plainly. Wake Forest piled up 561 total yards to Akron's 307, with 356 through the air and 205 on the ground. Wake did not turn it over, Akron lost a fumble, and Wake's defense sacked Akron twice. Cibastian Broughton completed 21 of 26 for the Akron side, and those 21 catches went for 111 yards. That is 5.3 a pop.
Wake Forest is 1-0, Akron 0-1. For the fantasy crowd, Lopez led everybody with 35.9 points, and Hernandez turned five catches into 165 yards and 27.5 points.