WINSTON-SALEM — Maryland had plenty of opportunities to put points on the scoreboard Saturday against Wake Forest.
Yet taking advantage of those chances proved to be the Terrapins’ downfall in a 31-10 loss to the Demon Deacons.
Quarterback C.J. Brown threw for 186 yards and a touchdown and ran for 110 more for Maryland (2-9, 1-6 Atlantic Coast Conference), who were tied 7-7 at the half.
However, the Terrapins managed just a 42-yard Nick Ferrara field goal over the final two quarters in losing their seventh consecutive game, their longest losing streak since 2009.
“When you have scoring opportunities and you don’t take advantage of them … it makes it very, very difficult to win,” Maryland coach Randy Edsall said. “We had too many missed opportunities in order to win the ball game.”
Brown, who took over as Maryland’s sole starting quarterback when Danny O’Brian suffered a broken arm last week against Notre Dame, put the Terrapins in position to tie the score with less than two minutes left in the first half.
Taking over with 1:27 remaining, Brown used runs of 14 and 20 yards to move the ball into Wake Forest territory, then found Justus Pickett in the back of the end zone on a 31-yard TD pass with 12 seconds left to tie the game.
“We had a lot of momentum coming in off that drive,” Brown said. “I hit Pickett on a little rail route and had a lot of momentum, and we were fired up to come out and finish the second half.
Unfortunately that didn’t happen. We left a lot of missed opportunities out there.”
The Terrapins wasted two scoring opportunities, with Ferrara missing field goal attempts of 32 yards in the first quarter and 36 yards in the third.
Maryland also had two other red-zone scoring opportunities in the fourth quarter stopped on downs, including a dropped pass in the end zone by tight end Matt Furstenburg on the Terrapins’ final possession.
“That took a little steam out of us even though we didn’t want it to,” Edsall said. “You just want to battle back even more, but we couldn’t punch it in.
“It’s kinda like there at the end of the game. That was an exclamation point on what took place.”
And opened the door for Wake Forest, with Tanner Price throwing for 320 yards and three touchdowns as the Demon Deacons snapped a three-game losing streak and became bowl eligible with its victory Saturday.
Brandon Pendergrass ran for 125 yards and a score and Jimmy Newman hit a 25-yard field goal for Wake Forest (6-5, 5-3), who also got a record-setting day from wide receiver Chris Givens.
Givens had eight catches for a career-best 191 yards and a score, and broke a 22-year-old Demon Deacons single-season receiving record. With one game remaining, Givens now has 1,207 yards, surpassing the old mark of 1,053 yards set by Ricky Proehl in 1989.
Givens broke Proehl’s record during Wake Forest’s lone scoring drive in the first half, pulling in a 14-yarder from Price to put the ball at the Maryland 2. Price would then hit Cameron Ford on a 2-yard pass on the next play to put Wake Forest up 7-0 with 5:17 left in the first quarter.
Price — who came within six yards of tying his career-best passing game, set earlier this season against Navy — also hit Terrence Davis with a 10-yard TD pass early in the fourth quarter, then gave Givens his career-high game with a 35-yard scoring pass midway through the final period.