The Circus is coming to town. Wake Forest will try to climb the postseason bowl food chain on Saturday with the second game of the Big Four matchups. The North Carolina Tar Heels will visit Winston-Salem as they try to climb just into bowl eligibility in the first college coaching season for former NFL legend Bill Belichick.
The Legacy on the Other Sideline
Wake Forest head coach Jake Dickert has coached against Belichick’s son Steve, the Tar Heels’ defensive coordinator. The younger Belichick was the defensive coordinator on Jedd Fisch’s staff at the University of Washington in 2024 when Dickert was the head coach at Washington State. For whatever it’s worth, the Huskies beat the Cougars 59-24.
Dickert’s interactions with the senior Belichick were limited to some off-season ACC meetings, but the understanding of Bill Belichick’s stature is there. “He’s got a big voice. People listen to him,” Dickert said earlier this week. “A tremendous amount of respect for what he’s done for the game. You know, wherever this all ends up, what he’s done for our game, period, I mean, is really impressive.”
What Belichick has done in season one in Chapel Hill has raised a lot of questions about the process. The Tar Heels are 4-5 overall and 2-3 in ACC play. They are pretty much on pace to finish within a game of where they were in 2024 when they fired college football hall-of-famer-to-be Mack Brown. UNC’s wins are against Richmond, Charlotte, Syracuse, and Stanford.
What Wake Faces Saturday
But there is a different familiarity with the two programs. Wake offensive coordinator Rob Ezell held the same position last year at South Alabama. His quarterback in that offense was Gio Lopez, the current signal-caller for North Carolina. “They’re asking him to do a lot of different things,” Dickert said when comparing the two seasons for Lopez. “They’re finding his strengths. He’s taken a ton of hits. You can tell the kid is tough.” The numbers show just how much the UNC offense has struggled this season. Lopez has thrown for 1,224 yards and eight touchdowns against five interceptions. That compares to 2,559 yards passing, 18 touchdowns, and five interceptions in 2024.
UNC needs to win two of the final three games of the season to get to bowl eligibility. All of those games are against Big Four opponents, Wake Forest, Duke, and NC State.
Wake Forest, meanwhile, has gotten to bowl status. After back-to-back 4-8 seasons, the Demon Deacons are 6-3 in the inaugural Dickert season. Now it’s about climbing the bowl ladder with more wins in the final three weeks. Those final three are at home Saturday against Carolina, at home the following week against Delaware, and then on the road to close the regular season at Duke. After the win at Virginia last week, Last Word has Wake projected for the Military Bowl in late December.
Holding on For Bigger Things
But there is no taking any of the potential for granted for Dickert. “The biggest message to the guys is that we’ve got to respond from success,” Dickert said at his weekly press conference. “We didn’t do it after the SMU game. Those guys see it. They know it. They learn from it.”
Dickert put the blame on himself for what happened the week after the SMU win. The Deacs got hammered at Florida State, 42-7. He has said repeatedly that he built the game up too much to the players.
That did not stop him from amping up the anticipation for Saturday against UNC. The game is sold out, per Wake Forest officials. “This is an opportunity for our program,” Dickert said. “To have a program changing environment,” he added in calling on all the fans and alums. “We get an opportunity to create an environment that these players deserve.”
He said the task for the season is far from done. “Too many people want to write the review of the story while it’s still happening. We’ve got a lot of time left. We’ve got a lot of opportunity left.”
The Players Who Returned For This
With that opportunity, he said, comes meaning for players like Nick Anderson, Davaughn Patterson, Quincy Bryant, Demond Claiborne, and others who opted to come back to Wake for one more season, through the coaching changes in December. Bryant said, during training camp, that several of them had made a pact. They did not like the way the last season or two finished, and they wanted to leave a better legacy at Wake.
“I think these guys have had a tremendous opportunity through change,” Dickert said. “We always talked about, from day one, building the foundation of being something special.” Dickert described himself as being thankful to those guys for their faith in him and the new coaching staff.
Missing
Dickert continues to be concerned about Wake’s inability to hit long yardage pass plays. “We’ve got to find a way to get some explosive plays. We just have to.”
That gets a little bit harder with the release on Thursday afternoon of the player availability report. Receiver Micah Mays, Jr. is listed as out for the game. Receiver Chris Barnes is listed as questionable. There will be an updated report on Saturday morning.
How to Watch
Date: Saturday, November 15; Time: 4:30 pm ET
Location: Allegacy Stadium, Winston-Salem, NC
TV: CW
Main Image: Amber Searls-Imagn Images
