Wake Forest manhandles Old Dominion as Monarchs end nearly 2-year wait in Ricky Rahne’s coaching debut

Old Dominion had to wait nearly two years to play a game.

After a generally dismal return to the field Friday, it seemed the Monarchs’ offense was still waiting to get started.

Sam Hartman passed for 184 yards and three touchdowns to lead Wake Forest to an easy 42-10 season-opening win over anemic ODU on a mild evening at Truist Field.

The Demon Deacons held ODU to 272 yards of total offense, including just 127 passing yards — much of which came against reserve players in mop-up time.

Big plays and small but costly mistakes chiefly spelled doom for the Monarchs. They surrendered five passing plays of at least 15 yards and three rushes of 10 or more, and they were penalized eight times for 56 yards.

But coach Ricky Rahne, making his ODU debut after a season with no games, said his confidence wasn’t shaken by the result.

“I think we have a very good football team,” Rahne said. “We just didn’t play as well as we could’ve tonight. We’re going to play better. We didn’t execute where we needed to execute. We had some coaching mistakes, including my own.”

Hayden Wolff’s 9-yard pass to Isaiah Spencer with 2:22 left in the game gave the Monarchs their first touchdown of the season and accounted for the final margin. It was way too little, way too late.

Christian Beal-Smith carried 11 times for 74 yards and two touchdowns for the Deacons, who generated 348 yards of total offense. Wake Forest averaged 10.2 yards per pass completion.

“We definitely feel like we competed all the way to the end,” said ODU linebacker Jordan Young, who had a team-high eight solo tackles and three tackles for loss. “We did some pretty good things. It was just a couple of mistakes here and there that really opened it up.”

A 4-yard touchdown pass from Hartman to Ke’Shawn Williams gave Wake Forest a 42-3 lead two minutes into the fourth quarter.

The Deacons stretched their lead to 35-3 on Beal-Smith’s 2-yard touchdown plunge midway through the third quarter.

The Monarchs’ 28-3 halftime deficit could’ve been worse. They twice stopped Wake Forest at the goal line as time expired.

The stand followed a 47-yard interception return by Ja’Sir Taylor that set the Deacons up on the ODU 7.

The Monarchs, who play host to Hampton Saturday, got 101 of their total yards and 88 of their 145 passing yards in the fourth quarter, long after the game was out of hand.

ODU finished with 145 rushing yards.

“We got the running game going, so that was very encouraging,” said running back Blake Watson, who carried 15 times for 55 yards. “So we’ll just build off of that, and we’re looking forward to next week.”

A 2-yard touchdown pass from Hartman to Jaquari Roberson gave the Deacons a 28-3 lead with 2:45 to go in the first half.

Wake Forest took a 21-3 lead with 12:01 left in the second quarter on Hartman’s 36-yard touchdown pass to A.T. Perry.

Nick Rice’s 38-yard field goal pulled the Monarchs to within 7-3 in the waning seconds of the first quarter, but Taylor returned the ensuing kickoff 99 yards to stretch Wake Forest’s advantage to 14-3.

After opening the game with a three-and-out, ODU’s defense surrendered a 48-yard touchdown run to Zach Tom, who outran the pack down the left sideline to give the Deacons a 7-0 lead with 8:57 left in the first quarter.

Central Florida junior transfer D.J. Mack, who starred at Norfolk’s Norview High, started and completed 7 of 21 passes for 39 yards and two interceptions in his ODU debut.

Rahne announced minutes before the game that Mack had won a three-man battle for the job, edging out senior Stone Smartt and redshirt freshman Hayden Wolff.

Mack was lifted early in the fourth quarter, and Wolff played the Monarchs’ final three possessions, completing 11 of 17 for 88 yards and a touchdown.

Rahne said he planned to evaluate the quarterbacks more this week, hinting that Mack could start against Hampton.

“I’m not a guy who likes to flip-flop back and forth,” Rahne said. “Obviously, every time the offense doesn’t play well, it’s the quarterback and everything from the fans’ perspective. Overall as a team, we’ve got to play better.”

Rahne, a former Penn State offensive coordinator, was hired at ODU in December 2019, but the school canceled the 2020 season over COVID-19 concerns.

Rahne was left to direct a season full of conditioning and practice sessions without the prospect or reward of games.

It’s why early Friday evening, before things went sideways, being back on the field was a thrill.

“It was exciting,” Rahne said. “Obviously, not the outcome that any of us wanted. There’s no moral victories, right? So just getting to play the game isn’t a moral victory. But it certainly felt good to get out here. That’s something that we needed to do to take the next step in our program.”

David Hall, david.hall@pilotonline.com