No. 14 Wake Forest has a four-game winning streak and has outscored its last three opponents by a stunning 136-24 margin.
Virginia has to hope the Demon Deacons (6-1, 4-1 Atlantic Coast Conference) cooled off during their bye week before the slumping Cavaliers (4-4, 2-3) arrive for Saturday afternoon’s meeting in Winston-Salem, N.C.
“The bye week is great to get refreshed, but man, we were in a rhythm on offense, defense and special teams, playing at a really high level,” Wake Forest coach Jake Dickert said Monday.
“The practice field is where you regain that. I talked a lot about that this morning. It’s got to be high intensity. It’s got to be physical. You can’t just show up after a two-week gap and expect game speed. You’ve got to practice that way, think that way, operate that way.”
The Wake Forest offense ranks third in the ACC in scoring (average of 37.4 points per game), fourth in passing (290.3 yards per game) and fifth in total offense (445.9).
Gio Lopez threw for 267 yards and four touchdowns and rushed for 51 yards in the Demon Deacons’ last game, a 41-7 win at Cal on Oct. 17. He is third in the conference with an average of 278.1 passing yards per game and has thrown only one interception in 207 pass attempts this season.
Lopez hopes to have his top target back against Virginia. Carlos Hernandez missed the win against Cal with an undisclosed injury but still ranks third in the ACC with 720 receiving yards on 49 catches.
Wake Forest pulled out a gritty 16-9 victory against then-No. 14 Virginia last season in Charlottesville, Va.
“I have a lot of respect for who we’re playing, because the style is very different and they’re more than happy to grind it out and kind of do it the old-fashioned way,” Dickert said of the Cavaliers. “We have to be able to play our game on our terms.”
Virginia is 1-3 in October after going 3-1 and briefly cracking the Top 25 in September. While Wake Forest was idle last weekend, Virginia gave up a late touchdown in a 19-16 home loss to Duke.
Coach Tony Elliott’s Cavaliers have been competitive the past two weeks, losing by 10 at then-No. 24 SMU on Oct. 17 and then leading most of the way against the Blue Devils. Will Bettridge’s 30-yard field goal put Virginia up 16-13 with three minutes left, but Duke responded with a game-winning, seven-play, 75-yard drive.
Jekail Middlebrook rushed for 117 yards and a touchdown against Duke and leads a deep Virginia backfield with 513 yards on 105 carries and five total touchdowns. Beau Pribula was held without a touchdown pass for the second straight game and has thrown only two during October’s slide.
The Cavaliers have scored more than 16 points only once in their last four games. In two of their games before that, they rang up a combined 101 points in lopsided wins against overmatched Norfolk State and Delaware.
“Guys have got to strain a little bit harder,” Elliott said. “They’re working hard, but when you’re playing playoff-style football every single week and it’s coming down to three to five plays, you never know which one of those plays is going to make the difference in the game.”