UNC football falls to Wake Forest, 28-12. Here’s what we learned
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- UNC failed to score a touchdown, lost 28-12, fell to 4-6 and jeopardized bowl eligibility.
- Wake Forest ran for 223 yards, Claiborne and Ashford paced a dominant ground attack.
- Rece Verhoff set a school record with a 57-yard field goal and remained UNC's lone scorer.
North Carolina walked into Allegacy Federal Credit Union Stadium on Saturday riding the confidence of back-to-back ACC wins and exited without finding the end zone in a 28-12 loss to Wake Forest. This marks the first game since 2016 in which the Tar Heels have failed to score a touchdown.
“It was small little things,” UNC coach Bill Belichick said. “There’s several drives [with] a lot of poor plays, but in the end we didn’t get it done.”
After a rocky start to the season and a few weeks flirting with wins, it seemed North Carolina was going steady. This trip to Winston-Salem marked the first of three chances — all against in-state opponents — for UNC to earn the two wins required for bowl eligibility. But the Tar Heels’ inability to stop the Demon Deacons’ ground game or generate any of their own offense (outside of a record night for kicker Rece Verhoff) underscores this much: the honeymoon phase is over.
Wake Forest gashed the Tar Heels with a 50-yard touchdown run off a fumble recovery on the first drive and spent the rest of the opening half slowly chipping away at UNC’s veneer. Demon Deacons running back Demond Claiborne, who Belichick called “outstanding” earlier this week, recorded 98 yards on 23 attempts. Wake Forest quarterback Robby Ashford added 52 rushing yards and threw for 191 more.
“Just not good enough in any area — offense, defense, special teams, coaching, playing,” Belichick said. “We just didn’t have a good night.”
Here’s what we learned as the Tar Heels dropped to 4-6 overall, 2-4 in league play:
Verhoff: offensive MVP and new school record-holder
The Tar Heels have Verhoff to thank for even getting on the scoreboard.
The Marshall transfer recorded not one, but two, field goals in the second quarter with a distance of 40 or more yards. Right before halftime, Verhoff barely squeezed in a 57-yard field goal that fell just inside the right upright.
That kick marks both a career-best distance for Verhoff and a school record. North Carolina’s previous record distance was 54.
“It was a great hit from my angle, I’m not gonna lie,” Verhoff said. “It looked like it was gonna hit the upright, and I was like, ‘Oh no.’”
Verhoff realized the kick was good when he saw his long snapper, Spencer Triplett, hold his hands up in the end zone.
“I was like, ‘There’s no way,’” Verhoff said. “So it was awesome.”
Verhoff’s excellent outing came at a crucial stretch for the Tar Heels. North Carolina failed to find the end zone in the opening half for the third straight game, and yet, only faced an eight-point deficit at halftime. Verhoff continued to be UNC’s sole source of offense in the second half, recording two more field goals after halftime.
Verhoff likely would’ve had 39-yard and 45-yard field goals to add to his highlight reel too, if not for two blocks by Wake Forest’s special teams unit — one in the first quarter and one in the third.
UNC finds rhythm on second drive, then loses its footing
UNC recorded 58 of its 257 total yards on its second drive, which saw the Tar Heels use 13 plays to consume over seven-and-a-half minutes of the clock.
Demon June’s ground game and a trio of Kobe Paysour targets helped Gio Lopez march UNC’s offense down the field, where Verhoff capitalized on his first field goal of the night to put North Carolina on the scoreboard.
North Carolina recorded a three-and-out on the next drive. Then, when linebacker Khmori House forced Claiborne to fumble the ball, the Tar Heels couldn’t capitalize on prime positioning at the Demon Deacon’s 31-yard line.
On that drive, soon after Benjamin Hall and Lopez put together three straight rushes to earn a first down, the Tar Heels found themselves in a second-and-11 at the Wake Forest 21-yard line. At that point, UNC offensive coordinator Freddie Kitchens decided to take the ball out of his quarterback’s hands. He cued up a trick play that saw Jordan Shipp fire a shot over the head of tight end Jake Johnson in the end zone.
That helped kill UNC’s most promising drive of the first half, which ended after a botched throw from Lopez to Shipp (as Gause streaked open on the left sideline) and a blocked field goal.
The Tar Heels managed a better showing, at least statistically, in the third quarter with 89 yards. Still, they failed to do much more than put Verhoff in field goal territory. North Carolina followed that up with 37 yards in the fourth quarter — the worst offensive frame of the game for UNC.
Despite all this, Belichick doubled down on his confidence in Lopez after the game.
“I thought he did pretty good job tonight,” Belichick said. “He’s under a lot of pressure... thought he hung in there, made some good throws.”
The Tar Heels’ sack party is over
Just days ago, it seemed this North Carolina defense had all the confidence in the world — and plenty of reasons for it.
UNC linebacker Tyler Thompson, who tallied seven sacks in four games entering Saturday, described an approach fueled by “effort and violence.” Belichick likened his process of building this Tar Heels pass rush — which, per Sportradar, recorded a national-best 20 sacks in the four weeks following their Clemson loss — to developing a baseball pitcher.
“Some guys are power rushers, some guys are more speed rushers… it’s hard to win with just one pitch, even if it’s a really good one,” Belichick said Tuesday. “You need a curveball. You need a change-up. You need something. I think that’s the way it is with the pass rush, too.”
To continue with Belichick’s analogy, the Tar Heels simply weren’t hitting their spots Saturday.
The first red flags came early. Ashford opened the game by juking two straight pass rushes and then, on a second-and-10 at the Demon Deacons’ 40-yard line, darted up the middle for a gain of 10 yards.
Wake Forest recorded 223 rushing yards in the game, the most UNC has allowed since TCU racked up 258 in the 48-14 season-opening loss.
UNC had just two sacks on Saturday — one by House and one shared by Marcus Allen and Xavier Lewis.
Saturday’s performance by the Tar Heels’ defense pales in comparison to recent showings, but Shipp still applauded his teammates on that side of the ball for keeping North Carolina within striking distance.
“When we got in the locker room after the game, I was like, ‘Defense, y’all are balling,’” Shipp said. “It’s on us. Like, we can’t expect y’all to stop everybody every drive and us keep going slow... that’s something we just got to own up to. There’s no more hiding from it.”
This story was originally published November 15, 2025 at 8:08 PM with the headline "UNC football falls to Wake Forest, 28-12. Here’s what we learned."