As we hit the home stretch in the college football season, Wake Forest continues to prove that multiple things can be true at the same time. There is quality blanketed in underperformance. They have high-end players being outdueled when they shouldn’t be. There are coaches who are widely heralded being out-schemed. All of it gets us to what is shaking out to potentially be another November to forget at Wake Forest.
All Is Not Lost…yet
We have to start here. While it feels like the roof is caving in after three straight losses, part of it is at least a little intact. At 6-4 overall, the Demon Deacons will be going to a bowl game. But as our projections get released on Tuesday, we can at least say, it is not even close to what could have been just a few weeks ago.
Yet through those gaping holes in the roof, we also see what we see. Wake is 2-4 in conference play and just one spot above a bad Boston College team for last place in the Atlantic. The 6-1 on October 22nd appears to have been an optical illusion.
All coaches across the country quietly talk about comparatives as the season goes along. Hey, we beat ABCD University, and now look at them. They are having a good season, so we did alright by beating them. We have never met a coach who doesn’t do it. The problem is that it rarely holds up throughout an entire season. Beating Vanderbilt, Liberty, and Army is what it is on the surface, and nothing more. Vandy getting its first SEC win in two years does not elevate Wake’s status.
Why Do They Have To Play In November?
The double-overtime loss at home to Clemson felt equal parts painful and confirming. The loss hurt because the game was there for the taking. But to also play that well against a team of Clemson’s caliber was an acknowledgment of how far Wake had come. Still, at this point in the growth of the program, Wake fans should be able to anticipate more than moral victories.
And that gets us to November, a month that causes Wake fans to shudder, and not because the air temperature drops. More because as the leaves Fall so, historically, does Wake Forest football. The Demon Deacons are 10-19 in November in the Dave Clawson era in Winston-Salem.
This is not a commentary on Clawson’s suitability as head coach at Wake Forest. Far from it. He is perfectly suitable for the task at hand. And two things can be true at the same time. Clawson can be a coaching candidate of interest for other schools, (which he currently is according to our sources), and he can be the head of a program that underperforms in crunch time. Both things can be true at the same time.
Just like there can be fans on social media that proclaim themselves lucky to have him as the head coach when the team is 6-1. And there can be fans when the team is 6-4, who are flummoxed that he didn’t opt for the field goal attempt on 4th down against UNC last Saturday. Both can be true.
Many Things Can Be True
It’s just like when coaches can tell you their team has had a great week of practice in preparation for a big game. And then in the days to come after the loss, they can tell you they could see it coming because they had a bad feeling after the week of practice leading into the game. We assure you Clawson is not the only one to do it. Most coaches do because they are not going to admit in advance they have concerns about their team’s readiness for a game.
A team can have a talented and valued team leader at quarterback. They would not be as good as they are without him. But then he has an offense that blows up both around him and in part because of him for weeks at a time. Or there can be an offensive line that during the off-season is touted for the number of starts they have combined as a unit, only to have that unit commit a high level of undisciplined and costly penalties at varying points during the season. It turns out many things can be true at one time.
Remember The Mindset Theme?
After the loss to UNC last Saturday, defensive lineman Kobie Turner talked about the mindset of the Wake Forest team. “We’re a team that gets knocked down, but when we get knocked down we get right back up.” He said they are not shading over the losses. “Obviously it hurts. And to ignore that hurt would leave out a part of ourselves. When you give a lot to this game it’s going to hurt when you lose. It’s going to hurt when you don’t get what you work so hard to do.” He said no one on the team is going to lie down under adversity.
That’s as it should be with one of the most experienced teams in the country. There should be enough veteran leadership around to get the team to stop feeling like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill every Fall.
Tell Us When It Is Safe To Come Out Again
But there also has to be significant self-evaluation all around. Is the coaching staff stumbling at critical junctures of preparation or game schemes? Was the meltdown at Louisville an anomaly? Is NC State’s defense so far advanced over Wake’s offense that some exotic blitzes throw the Demon Deacons’ offense into chaos? In a battle of offensive firepower, is UNC that much better off with a redshirt freshman at the helm compared to the ultra-senior leadership of Wake? Occam’s razor theory of evaluation says with all things being equal, the simplest answer is usually the correct one. To many then, all of the above are going to be true at the same time.
So many things are true all at once for Wake Forest. But when, oh for the sake of calendars all across the Winston-Salem area, when can Wake Forest fans be allowed to trust their fandom to the Demon Deacons in November? Wake has two games left this month. Is 2-2 for November 2022 too much to hope for? Or is it another moonshot in the prolonged Novembers to not remember?
