Wake Forest has begun its official practices in preparation for the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, but not without some challenges. It used to be that schools had to deal with the occasional player opting out of a bowl game. Now, coaches have to concern themselves with players leaving before a bowl game so that they can go into the transfer portal.
Roster Fluctuation As Wake Opens Bowl Game Prep
Working Through the Personnel
Demon Deacons head coach Jake Dickert met with the media on Monday as the team began practices for the bowl game. The time came just a day after receiver/kick returner Chris Barnes announced he was leaving Wake to go into the transfer portal.
Just a couple of hours after the practice, starting running back Demond Claiborne posted on his Instagram page that he was declaring for the NFL. There was not much surprise there. Claiborne has no college football playing eligibility left. What wasn’t explicitly said in the post is what the real story is. He is leaving Wake Forest to begin workouts with his trainer ahead of the Senior Bowl at the end of January. He has not gone through the official invitation/acceptance process yet, but it will be there. And then after that, it is the time needed to get ready for NFL workouts. He is done at Wake Forest effective immediately.
Dickert said finding out who is staying and who is going is just an added part of getting ready for the bowl games now. He coached in two bowl games while at Washington State (to an 0-2 record). But even over that short period of time from then to now, things have changed. “The frustrations I had probably the first couple of times of earning that [bowl game] with your team, and then you’re a different looking team once you take the field down there,” he said on Monday. And now? “You’ve got people that needed to get into the portal. You’ve got people that chose to get into the portal. You have seniors that are preparing for their future.”
The System and the Bowl
The biggest issue with the system, according to Dickert and many others, is not the system, but the calendar for the system. The portal window opens on January 2nd. That is the same day as the Mayo Bowl. While Dickert would like to be selling the virtues of Wake Forest to potential transfers, he has a more pressing need at the moment; coaching his team in the bowl game. With the expansion of the playoff causing adjustments in the calendar, the college football rules still treat the sport like it is one semester in length, while it very clearly bleeds into two semesters.
“It isn’t good,” Dickert said of the timing of the system. “It’s an honor to play in the game. It’s an honor to be in Charlotte. Demon Deacons, we never thought we were going to be here in year one. So, celebrate that. There’s obviously challenges that come with it, and this is obviously one of those.”
Dickert and his staff spent the two weeks after the loss to Duke in the regular season finale meeting with players to assess their individual futures. Some are getting new or extended contracts at Wake, complete with revenue sharing. A new high school class with 30 signees will soon be welcomed in. It’s a class that Dickert called, “The best Wake Forest has ever seen.” And there are those who are moving on for the reason Dickert listed.
Dickert said that based on those meetings, he believes the program is returning approximately 87% of the on-field snaps from the 2025 season. “If you can do that year in and year out, we’re going to be really, really successful,” he said.
The Time Ahead
The current week is being used as a pre-bowl camp, similar to Fall camp. Some of the players who were further down the depth chart are going to be getting a lot of reps at practice as attrition plays its role on the roster.
Next week, they will get time off to go home for Christmas. And then they will be back right away to begin preparation specific to playing Mississippi State in the Mayo Bowl.
Dickert is already on top of the Mississippi State game films. “You’re talking about a team that played five one-score games. They’re the fastest, I think, or the second fastest, offense in the country analytically. So, our guys have got to be in shape over the next four weeks,” Dickert said. “They’re big. They’re long. They are exactly what you think of as an SEC team. They are going to get off the bus, and you’re going to go, ‘Hey, hello, here we go.’ But what an opportunity for our guys.”
Dickert described the approach he is taking with the team as one of mentality. He said the team will get Mayo Bowl rings. “But do you want them to say participant? Or do you want them to say champion?”
Main Image from Tony Siracusa
