The magic finally runs out for Wake Forest in Orange Bowl

MIAMI (AP) _ Plucky Wake Forest finally ran out of magic. <br/><br/>All season long, the Demon Deacons demonstrated an ability to conjure improbable victories in difficult situations, becoming the Cinderella

Wednesday, January 3rd 2007, 6:25 am

By: News On 6

MIAMI (AP) _ Plucky Wake Forest finally ran out of magic.

All season long, the Demon Deacons demonstrated an ability to conjure improbable victories in difficult situations, becoming the Cinderella of this year's Bowl Championship Series. But when they needed one final spark _ in the biggest game of the year _ they came up empty.

``It's definitely tough to have the lead close to the fourth quarter and lose it (but) it just wasn't our night,'' quarterback Riley Skinner said.

No. 15 Wake Forest lost 24-13 to No. 5 Louisville in the Orange Bowl on Tuesday night in the Deamon Deacons' first Bowl Championship Series appearance. And for a team which made its name on winning the close games, losing one to end the season was tough to take.

``It's funny _ you get in the Orange Bowl, and it feels really, really good,'' coach Jim Grobe said. ``But when you lose it, it doesn't feel any different than if you lose any other time.''

The Demon Deacons (11-3) entered as 10-point underdogs, and did an effective job of keeping Brian Brohm in check during the first half _ holding him to 7-of-13 passing for 79 yards at halftime.

For a while, the redshirt freshman Skinner outdueled his higher-profile counterpart by completing 14 of his first 17 passes for 199 yards. His 30-yard touchdown pass to Nate Morton tied it at 10 early in the third quarter.

``We didn't want to change anything,'' Skinner said. ``We knew we could move the ball. We had been doing it all game. ... We knew we could move it. We just made a couple of mistakes. You can't do that against a team as good as Louisville.''

And they actually did what many thought was impossible _ they led the high-octane Cardinals in the fourth quarter.

``We've got us a ballgame,'' cornerback Riley Swanson said of that feeling. ``We were playing good, we were in it, but we still knew there was more work to be done.''

And once Brohm got rolling, a Cardinals win became inevitable.

``He's a great quarterback, he runs a great offense and you know whenever you play them, you've got to kind of control them for four quarters,'' safety Josh Gattis said. ``The way it turned out tonight, we did. ... We did a lot of things to ourselves, just didn't make plays (in the fourth quarter).''

No, the night was Brohm's. He led two touchdown drives on consecutive possessions in the fourth quarter and finished 24-of-34 passing for 311 yards. Skinner completed 21-of-33 for 271 yards.

For the Demon Deacons, there wasn't a single turning point _ much unlike the last time they blew a fourth-quarter lead. Clemson rallied for a 27-17 victory over Wake Forest on Oct. 7, grabbing the momentum when Gaines Adams returned a fumble on a failed field-goal attempt 66 yards for a touchdown.

This time, after Sam Swank's 36-yard field goal gave the Demon Deacons a 13-10 lead, Brohm simply started playing well. He led Louisville to a go-ahead touchdown on its ensuing drive, completing four of five passes for 66 yards as the Cardinals went ahead to stay on Anthony Allen's 1-yard scoring run.

The Demon Deacons, who were coming off a stirring come-from-behind 9-6 victory over Georgia Tech in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game, couldn't conjure up another comeback in their first January bowl game since the 1940s.

Louisville (12-1) tacked on another touchdown on its next possession, and Skinner's last-gasp pass was intercepted inside the red zone by William Gay with 2:53 left. It was the Demon Deacons' third turnover of the game _ they also fumbled twice inside the red zone.

``Nobody has a mistake-free game, but unfortunately ours came at bad times,'' Skinner said. ``We just have to roll with it, and I thought we bounced back from it pretty well. We just made errors when we shouldn't have, but you can't really complain about the game, but you definitely wish you could have some plays back.''