Last season, there was a plan for the running game at Wake Forest. It didn’t quite come to fruition. Now Wake Forest is in reformulation mode for the running back room for the 2026 season.
Rebuilding the Running Back Room at Wake Forest
What Was Then
After taking over as head coach in December 2024, Jake Dickert made it clear that retaining running back Demond Claiborne was the top priority. Throughout a Spring camp where the workload was light for Claiborne, Dickert said he just wanted to get the ball in the running back’s hands and let him show how he is one of the fastest running backs in the country.
It never really turned out the way it had been planned. Claiborne put in more conditioning and strength work than at any time in his previous Wake Forest seasons. He was going to have a chance to shine outside of the confining, slow mesh offense. Instead, he suffered an injured shoulder in week one of the season. From there, he tried to play through banged-up ribs, lower leg injuries, and recurring shoulder issues. He finished the season with just under 1,000 yards and 10 touchdowns, both numbers below his 2024 season. Now he is doing workouts for NFL teams, trying to show he has durability.
What Is Now
Meanwhile, back in Winston-Salem, Dickert is retooling the Demon Deacons’ running back room with a multi-player focus.
Ty Clark III is the known entity, having been the primary backup to Claiborne last season. He had 75 carries for 323 and three touchdowns. But Spring camp is also giving everyone a good look at KD Daniels, Deuce Lawrence, Jamar Searcy, and even a little Sawyer Seidl thrown in for good measure.
Running back coach Effrem Reed says having a group that includes a few guys who could be “every-down backs,” creates some diversity of opportunities for the offense. “The biggest advantage is, you can create, I guess I’d say, confidence in different situations,” Reed said this week. He said he has backs who can excel depending upon the situation. “I think that provides value. You don’t feel handcuffed when you’re trying to put guys in the game in situations as well.”
Carries By Committee
Daniels said the plan works for everyone physically. “I kind of look at it in a sense of being able to work together. Because you’re going to need other backs in the room. You can’t just take all the beating yourself,” he said.
Daniels is a transfer from the University of Florida. He redshirted in 2024 and then played in 10 games last season with 28 carries for 108 yards and a touchdown. He was a four-star recruit coming out of high school in Mississippi in 2024. He also played on special teams for the Gators.
Reed had recruited Daniels as a high school player when he, Reed, was the running backs coach at Michigan State, so the two were very familiar with each other long before training camp. Reed is part of the reason Daniels is at Wake Forest now. “Reed is an RB guru, I would say. And just off the field, [he’s] teaching me how to be a man. Some day, we’re going to be able to hang up the cleats. And I just feel like that’s important.”
What Will Be
As for Reed’s assessment of the bounty of running backs at his disposal right now, he said he likes the energy and effort so far. But the thing that has stood out to him is the consistency he is seeing every day.
The competition for carries also creates a different type of teaching challenge for the coaching staff. “They are trying to be too perfect at times,” Reed said. “I think they know what to do. They know what is expected. But the confidence part of it is what we’re trying to get them to understand. Just go out there and cut it loose and play ball.”
Reed said perfection from any of them is not the goal for Spring. “You’re going to make mistakes. Just go out there and make them at full speed. Make them flying around. And make them with confidence, and we’ll go out here and get it corrected.”
Reed said he is putting each of the backs into situations he knows they can handle, and then stacking other things on top of that in order to try to boost the confidence, since this is going to be a running back by committee season for Wake. Who sees the field the most will still boil down to the basics. “Protect the football. Protect the quarterback,” Reed said. “Those are our two main rules. And if you can’t do that, it’s going to be hard for me to put you in the game.”
Wake has five more workouts for Spring camp over the next seven days, including the Family Fest/Spring Scrimmage on Saturday.
Main Image: Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
