Deacons get boost from Hartman
With Sam Hartman behind center, Wake Forest coach Dave Clawson feels pretty good about his team’s chances.
Hartman passed for 300 yards and four touchdowns, and No. 23 Wake Forest beat Vanderbilt 45-25 on Saturday.
Hartman connected on 18 of 27 passes after he missed Wake Forest’s opener against VMI because of a blood clot. The fifth-year quarterback directed the Demon Deacons to 11 wins and a trip to the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game last season.
“He’s played so much football and when he goes out there, he’s just got a command of things,” Clawson said. “And I think everybody else’s play kind of elevates with him. “He’s one of the premier quarterbacks in the country.”
Hartman’s 68-yard touchdown pass to A.T. Perry lifted Wake Forest (2-0) to a 14-3 lead with 36 seconds left in the first quarter. He found Christian Turner for a 2-yarder early in the second quarter, and then threw second-half touchdown passes to Taylor Morin and Cameron Hite.
“I didn’t feel too bad, you know a little rusty,” Hartman said. “I mean, of course, it’s a rain game your first game back, but no turnovers on offense was huge. It was sloppy, you know how it goes. I missed throws here and there on some of the early ones.”
A.J. Swann passed for two touchdowns for Vanderbilt in relief of Mike Wright. Swann also ran for a 2-point conversion.
Re’Mahn Davis had 18 carries for 87 yards for the Commodores (2-1), including a 2-yarder with 11:06 left in the first half that trimmed Wake Forest’s lead to 21-10.
The Demon Deacons went ahead to stay when Wright threw a pass to the left under pressure that was intercepted by Coby Davis and returned 31 yards for a touchdown in the first quarter.
“I felt like early in the game we started fast on defense and were playing competitively,” Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea said. “But the interception for a touchdown was a momentum killer.
“We wanted to represent this program better today, but we didn’t. It’s frustrating. It’s disappointing.”
Sanders helps Arkansas past South Carolina: Darren McFadden and Felix Jones make for some serious company. Rocket Sanders can now say he’s there with those all-time Arkansas running backs.
The Razorbacks’ sophomore running back ran for a career-high 156 yards and two touchdowns in helping the No. 16 Razorbacks beat South Carolina 44-30 on Saturday.
Sanders joined McFadden, twice a Heisman Trophy finalist, and Jones, the player with the sixth-most yards rushing in school history, as the only three Arkansas players to run for 150 yards and two scores against the Gamecocks.
“Um, that’s good,” Sanders said after the game. He half-chuckled his next sentence. Of course I want to be better than those guys.”
Sanders ran for 578 yards and five touchdowns in his first season last year. With returning starter Dominique Johnson still sidelined recovering from a knee injury suffered in the Outback Bowl, Sanders has taken nearly all of the firstteam reps. The result has been a 2-0 start for his team and him becoming the first Razorbacks player since 2019 with backto-back 100-yard games.
Sanders scored the first two touchdowns of the game as Arkansas (2-0, 1-0 Southeastern Conference) found the end zone on each of its first three possessions against South Carolina
Utah throttles Southern Utah: After dropping a heartbreaker to Florida in the season opener, Cameron Rising said Utah didn’t want to leave anything to chance against Southern Utah.
“The game plan was just to come out and dominate,” Rising said.
Dominate they did as Rising threw for 254 yards in the first half, Dalton Kincaid had 107 yards receiving and two touchdowns and No. 13 Utah routed Southern Utah 73-7 on Saturday. Utah scored on nine consecutive drives, including eight touchdowns, over the final three quarters against the FCS Thunderbirds (1-1). The Utes had 599 yards of total offense.
Leary, NC State beat Charleston Southern:
Devin Leary kept finding the end zone for No. 18 North Carolina State, sometimes with a tough-nosed edge that had him unbothered by would-be tacklers.
“If I’ve got to get a little gritty, I’m willing to do it,” the quarterback said.
Leary’s play was one of several positive signs for the Wolfpack in Saturday’s 55-3 win against Charleston Southern in the team’s first chance to move past the shaky finish from its opener at East Carolina.
Leary tied a program record by accounting for six touchdowns, with four coming through the air.
One that stood out was a perfect 24-yard wheel route to Jordan Houston down the left side. The other was a 40-yard strike over the middle to Anthony Smith after he shrugged blitzer Nick Perry off his back.