WINSTON-SALEM – Evaluating the Week 3 game for Wake Forest is a mixed bag.

The Deacons were a double-digit favorite and by the bowtie on the mascot’s chin, they squeaked out a win. Their quarterback made a few poor reads and bad throws. Wake’s defense bailed them out of a couple of situations.

The opponent was a Group of 5 team from Virginia.

Wait, are we talking about last year’s win over Liberty? Or about last week’s game at Old Dominion?

“It was a great win and we were fortunate to win it. There were a lot of positives from the win and a lot of the positives came from negatives,” coach Dave Clawson said a few days after last season’s 37-36 win over Liberty.

And this week, there was:

“I think with like 6 minutes and 40 seconds left … we had like a 6 or 7% chance of winning the game. And we did, and that’s positive, the resolve, the heart, the competitiveness. What’s not positive is how we got to that point.”

There are two obvious caveats: One, last year’s game against Liberty saw the Deacons jump out to a commanding lead and hold on, while the ODU game was a 17-point comeback for a 27-24 win; and two, it’s a different team than the one from a year ago.

But the evaluation process of every football game — every sport, really, but football for today’s purpose — involves what went right and what went wrong.

And out of the last 16 games Wake Forest has played, you won’t find anything like these Week 3 games.

If this follows a similar script as a year ago, Wake’s best games are ahead of it — and not too far off.

The Deacons followed the Liberty game with a double overtime loss to Clemson that was the first time in a long time Wake Forest has looked the part of an equal to the team that had a stranglehold on the ACC. After what Clawson described as a “gut-wrenching” loss, Wake Forest went to Florida State and hung a 10-point win on what was ultimately a 10-win Seminoles team.

The Deacons thoroughly controlled that game and in bouncing back a week after the Clemson loss, showed the same resolve, heart and competitiveness that Clawson lauded his team for showing during last weekend’s game.

“The game kind of reminds me of life,” running back Justice Ellison said of last week’s win. “I was just reiterating on the sideline that everybody looks good when they’re doing the punching and things are going well for them.

“But can you do well when you get punched in the face? That really shows the character of a man.”

Last year’s team — when it was this time in the season — had that. Now we’ll see if this year’s Wake Forest team does.