Army Battles Wake Forest in Offensive Shootout

WEST POINT – The Michie Stadium scoring record was broken on Saturday afternoon, as the Army West Point football team and No. 15/16 Wake Forest put up a combined 126 points in a game that saw the Demon Deacons claim a 70-56 victory.

The Black Knights (4-3) scored the most points against an opponent ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 since at least the 1950 season, which helped the team knock off their previous facility record of 111 combined points (vs. Louisville – Oct. 7, 1999).

Both teams got their offense going early in the game, as 21 combined points were put up in the opening 15 minutes. Wake Forest (7-0, 4-0 ACC) was the first to strike, doing so with a 63-yard run into the end zone that put the visiting team up 7-0. Though Brandon Walters responded with his first career touchdown on a six-yard rush, Wake Forest had earned a 14-7 advantage by the end of the first quarter.

Once again, the Cadets were able to knot up the score at the start of the second quarter. Jakobi Buchanan punched in a three-yard run to cap off a 12-play, 55-yard drive that ate up nearly seven minutes and tied the game at 14-14. From there, the teams traded touchdowns before Wake Forest used a 13-yard run to take a 28-21 lead into the halftime break.

Army had the ball following the trip to the locker room and wasted no time in attacking the Deacs. A pair of 20-plus yard rushes from Tyhier Tyler (22 yds.) and Walters (23 yds.) sparked a drive that ended with Buchanan running the ball into the end zone for his second-multi touchdown game of the 2021 season.

Following Buchanan’s strike, Wake Forest went on to score a pair of unanswered touchdowns. A 75-yard run and a pick-six allowed the Deacs to distance themselves from the Black Knights with a 42-28 lead.

On the second snap of Army’s ensuing drive, Anthony Adkins got the Black Knights back into the scoring column. The sophomore ran for a career-long 71 yards to reach the end zone for a one-possession game at 42-35. However, the Demon Deacons were able to record an additional touchdown to go up 49-35 before time expired in the third quarter.

At the start of the fourth quarter, the teams traded a pair of touchdowns to continue the scoring spree. Jabari Laws threw a pair of touchdown passes, which included his first of the campaign, to Isaiah Alston and Tyrell Robinson to keep up the scoring for the Cadets; while Wake Forest used a short pass and a quarterback run to match the effort and push the score to favor the Deacs at 63-49.

A late-game turnover for the Cadets allowed the visiting team to pick up its final points of the day, as a fumble recovery kicked off its second-straight scoring drive. Trailing 70-49, the Black Knights’ offense refused to let its foot off the gas and quickly put together a three-play, 65-yard drive that took just over a minute to complete and ended with another touchdown pass from Laws to Alston. The 39-yard toss was Laws’ longest touchdown throw of the year and allowed Alston to record his first career multi-touchdown game.

Ultimately, the back-and-forth battle ended in favor of the ranked visitors. With the result, Army’s 13-game winning streak at Michie Stadium, which was the fifth-longest active streak in the nation, came to an end at the hands of a Wake Forest team that is close to cracking the AP’s top-14 for the first time since 1947.

Army will enjoy its second bye week of the 2021 season, which it will use to prepare for a matchup against Air Force in the Lockheed Martin Commanders’ Classic. The Black Knights and the Falcons will face off on Saturday, Nov. 6 in Arlington, Texas.