Sam Hartman threw three touchdown passes and ran for two scores in another huge offensive performance as No. 13 Wake Forest drubbed visiting Duke 45-7 on Saturday in Winston-Salem, N.C.
The Demon Deacons are 8-0 for the first time in program history.
Hartman completed 24-of-37 passes for 402 yards without an interception. A.T. Perry caught seven passes for 116 yards.
Those numbers were part of Wake Forest’s 677 yards of total offense. Christian Turner was the team’s top rusher with 75 yards on 10 carries, with Hartman next with 61 yards on six rushing attempts.
Wake Forest (5-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) led 28-0 at halftime. This was the Demon Deacons’ lone conference game across a four-week period, and it came on homecoming.
Duke (3-5, 0-4), which lost its fourth game in a row, nearly went two full games without scoring. The Blue Devils were shut out two weeks earlier at Virginia in their most recent game.
Wake Forest lost its shutout bid when Duke’s Riley Leonard scored on a 2-yard run with 7:17 to play.
Running back Mataeo Durant gained 103 yards on 20 carries for Duke. Quarterback Gunnar Holmberg was 10-for-18 for 110 yards.
The Demon Deacons seemed to pick up where they left off from a 70-56 victory a week earlier at Army. It took just 91 seconds for the Demon Deacons to go 75 yards, with Hartman connecting with Jaquarii Roberson for a 38-yard scoring play.
Hartman then scored on runs of 26 and 4 yards before a 3-yard pass to Ke’Shawn Williams.
About the only thing that went wrong for Wake Forest was that Nick Sciba, who’s bidding to become the all-time most accurate kicker in NCAA history, missed a field goal on a 26-yard attempt. He later was good from 26 yards out.
Duke moved into Wake Forest territory on three of its first four possessions, but came up empty each time.
–Field Level Media