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Wake Forest and Boston College was a 3-0 horrorshow neither team deserved to win

Wake Forest is America's best team at winning horrific football disasters.

By Rodger Sherman

Wake Forest just beat Boston College 3-0. They come away with a win, making them the first team to win a game by the score of 3-0 since Oregon State in the 2008 Sun Bowl. Here is how coach Dave Clawson described the game:

Clawson was telling the truth. Neither team deserved to win this game. It was a maelstrom of failure: Each team played bafflingly terrible offense for 58 minutes, then made enormous mistakes in the final two minutes that 99 times out of 100 would have certainly lost the game. Let us examine the calamity:

MASSIVE SCREW-UP NO. 1, 2:12 REMAINING

Boston College has the ball, and they're driving with a chance to score. Their first 13 drives ended in eight punts, two missed field goals, two fumbles, and an interception, but hey, they've also prevented Wake Forest from scoring most of the game, so they're driving to score.

Wake Forest unleashed an awful punt -- it only went to their own 40-yard-line -- but Sherman Alston ran the ball backward 9 yards on the return. Still, BC has great field position. BC moves the ball all the way down inside the 10-yard-line ... and then Troy Flutie fumbles the ball on a QB keeper.

The Eagles had the ball with an opportunity to win or at least tie. Instead, they fumbled, and now Wake Forest likely has the win unless they wildly screw up.

MASSIVE SCREW-UP NO. 2, 1:05 REMAINING

Wake Forest wildly screws up.

Wake Forest runs the ball twice, each for a gain of 1 yard. They now face third-and-8, and probably have to pass to run the game out, potentially stopping the clock. Hold on -- just so you know, the inability to get into a favorable third-down scenario isn't the massive screw-up I was talking about. It's bad, but much worse things happen here.

You see, BC then wildly screws up: They go offsides and give Wake Forest a much more favorable third-down. Wake Forest can now run the ball and get a first down, and even if they don't, time comes off the clock. Again -- BC's dumb penalty is not the massive screw-up I'm talking about in this section. It was dumb and could have lost them the game.

But this is when Wake Forest does the REALLY bad thing. Now that they can run, they do, and QB Matt Colburn keeps it ... and HE fumbles. BC's Justin Simmons recovers.

The Demon Deacons had the ball with the opportunity to run out the clock or at least take a bunch of time off and punt it. Instead, they've given Boston College the ball on the 11-yard-line. BC is already in field goal range and they're 11 yards from paydirt. They should win or at least force OT.

Unless, you know, they do something horribly wrong.

MASSIVE SCREW-UP NO. 3, 0:15 remaining

Boston College got the ball back with no timeouts and about a minute left. They have a few running plays, sure, but if they do run, they can't stop the clock unless they spike it.

Their first play is a run. The clock runs.

Their second play is a run for a first down, down to the 1-yard line. This stops the clock, but only until the refs place the ball down.

The refs place the ball down with about 25 seconds left. Boston College IS STILL HUDDLING, with the clock running. Their coaches yell at them to hurry up. They have time to take multiple shots at the end zone, assuming they pass the ball, but at this point, running is dangerous, because if you do not score, you have to get back to the line of scrimmage ASAP and clock the ball.

Their third play is a run. It does not score:

The next 10 seconds are complete chaos. This is how our Wake Forest and BC blogs responded:

Wake Forest probably knows that the longer they keep BC's players on the ground, the more likely they are to win. For seconds, the players squabble on the ground. Eventually, refs run in and place the ball down, but BC doesn't line up in time. They can't clock the ball.

This is when the refs announce they're reviewing something, presumably whether or not the Eagles got into the end zone here. They announce the game is over.

* * *

Last year, Wake Forest beat Virginia Tech 6-3 in the game that brought us this:

This year, we got this:

Wake Forest isn't a great football team, and although Clawson is doing good things, they probably won't be for a bit.

But twice in two years, they've managed to win aggressively awful football games, games that made people celebrate abject failure. The wins haven't been pretty, but their ability to dredge victory from a horrible morass of football is beautiful.

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