Wake Forest Blocks Late Field Goal to Stun No. 16 Louisville, 30-27

Wake Forest walked into L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium on Saturday as a double-digit underdog against a Louisville team that had cracked the Associated Press top 16 the week before. It walked out with a 30-27 win, sealed when defensive lineman Gabe Kirschke blocked a potential game-tying 57-yard field goal attempt by Louisville's Nick Keller with 15 seconds left, according to a wire account of the finish.

The result, detailed in NCAA.com's official game summary, dropped Louisville to 2-2 overall and 1-1 in the Atlantic Coast Conference, one week after the Cardinals had climbed into the rankings by beating then-No. 16 SMU, 41-31. Wake Forest improved to 3-1 and 1-1 in ACC play, picking up its second true road win of the season under second-year head coach Jake Dickert.

A Track Meet Before Halftime

The two teams combined for 45 points in the opening two quarters. Louisville led 7-3 after the first, but Wake Forest quarterback Gio Lopez found receiver Carlos Hernandez for a 77-yard touchdown to put the Demon Deacons up 17-14, then running back Ty Clark III added a 6-yard touchdown run to make it 24-14 with 1:19 left in the half. Louisville answered in a hurry: quarterback Lincoln Kienholz hit Jaleel Skinner for a 61-yard score just 22 seconds later, and the teams went to the locker room with Wake ahead only 24-21.

Hernandez finished with nine catches for 194 yards and the touchdown, according to the box score posted by CBS Sports' gametracker, while Lopez completed 12 of 19 passes for 225 yards. Clark carried 21 times for 91 yards and two touchdowns. Kienholz, for his part, went 27 of 36 for 324 yards with a touchdown pass, two rushing touchdowns and an interception — a heavy workload that Louisville's official recap, posted on the athletic department's site, credited for keeping the Cardinals in it as long as they were.

Field Goals, a Missed Kick and a Block

The third quarter was calmer and ended tied at 27, with both sides trading field goals — Wake Forest kicker Connor Calvert made his second of the day while Louisville's Carson Hilbert connected from 41 and 54 yards. Calvert then delivered the decisive score early in the fourth quarter, a 32-yarder with 6:20 remaining that put Wake ahead 30-27 for good.

Louisville had two more chances. Hilbert missed from 42 yards with 2:29 left, and after the Cardinals got the ball back one final time, Keller lined up from 57 yards with the season on the line. Kirschke got a hand on it, and Wake Forest ran out the final seconds with the upset secured — a sequence Louisville's own game center page for the matchup lists among the day's decisive plays.

"It was far from perfect — it was ugly, but it was so beautiful because our guys found a way to win the game," Wake Forest coach Jake Dickert said afterward, according to comments carried in multiple postgame accounts of the win.

What the Result Means

For Louisville and fourth-year coach Jeff Brohm, the loss is the program's first ACC defeat of the season and comes just seven days after a signature win that had the Cardinals believing they belonged in the league's upper tier. For Wake Forest, it's the kind of result that changes the temperature around a rebuild: Dickert, hired in December 2024, led the Demon Deacons to a nine-win season and a bowl victory in his first year, and a ranked road win over a top-16 opponent is the clearest evidence yet that the program can compete for more than just bowl eligibility in his second.

The win also scrambles an ACC race that, as wire coverage of Saturday's slate noted, already had a crowded field of one-loss teams jockeying for position early in conference play. With Wake Forest and Louisville now both sitting at 1-1 in the league, neither team's ACC title hopes are dead, but both will need to find more consistency than they showed in a game that saw 57 points, three lead changes and a blocked kick decide the outcome.