Chuck Bullough came into the locker room at halftime and told the defense that they were killing themselves, making costly mistakes where there didn’t need to be.

Afterward, Ron Thompson — considered by teammates a captain, even though he isn’t — gathered the defense and told them not to give Wake Forest anything. He told them to simply do their job.

Moments before, Syracuse had limited a driving Wake Forest offense to a last-minute field goal. Five completed passes in the span of 1:44 had given the Demon Deacons momentum, but the late stand shifted a momentum that had its pendulum swung by speeches from the defensive leaders.

“It just got everybody back right,” cornerback Julian Whigham said. “…We knew we had a shot the entire time.”

After a sluggish performance from SU’s secondary in the first half that contributed to WFU quarterback John Wolford’s ability to connect on 20 of his first 24 passes, the Syracuse defense rebounded to shut out the Demon Deacons in the second half.

Syracuse’s offense backed up the effort with a couple big plays, and the Orange (2-0, 1-0 Atlantic Coast) came back to defeat Wake Forest (1-1, 0-1), 30-17, in the Carrier Dome on Saturday.

“There were guys that weren’t where they were supposed to be,”Bullough said after the game. “In the second half, they were …I just said, ‘Don’t worry, this game’s going to change.”

With Syracuse nursing a 3-0 lead late in the first quarter, Wake Forest needed just four plays to complete a 75-yard touchdown drive. The last of those plays was a 40-yard deep pass to K.J. Brent, who freed himself up using a double step to get past Whigham and in position where the safeties couldn’t salvage the play.

With the Orange up 13-7, linebacker Zaire Franklin nearly sacked Wolford, who dumped the ball off to Tabari Hines. The Demon Deacons receiver couldn’t be brought down for 39 yards as he raced into the red zone, and a touchdown two plays later put WFU in front for the second time.

“You get the feeling like, ‘Oh man, they got the lead, how are we going to do this,” Whigham said.

Shafer said his defense “dug their teeth in” before halftime to prevent Wake Forest from getting another touchdown. To start the second half, a near six-minute drive for Wake Forest ended in a missed 50-yard field goal. Syracuse was able to take over at their own 33, and it was about as close as WFU would get to scoring the rest of the game.

It was a stop defensive end Luke Arciniega said “we needed.” The defense had been on the field longer than Shafer wanted, but the stop set the momentum for the rest of the game.

After the game, the topic of conversation was who would get the “hit stick”, an award given to the player with the biggest hit. It was between Wayne Morgan, who delivered a hit late in the fourth quarter to prevent a reception, and Ron Thompson, whose block helped Donnie Simmons get in position for an interception return for a touchdown.

There wasn’t a clear consensus on who had won, but it was a welcomed topic of conversation for a defense that needed a strong second half to make an SU comeback possible.

“Those kids, they nutted up,”Shafer said. “They sucked it up, they went, they had each other’s back.”

Published on September 12, 2015 at 6:05 pm

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