Is there a new standard for success at Wake Forest football? The Demon Deacons are 8-3 with a chance to finish the regular season at nine wins. A bowl win would get them to an even 10. It’s not unprecedented at Wake, but it is rarified air.
The Past
Jim Grobe got to 11 wins in 2006 (with a conference championship). Dave Clawson got 11 wins in 2021 (with a division championship). Between the two coaches, there were a total of five seasons of eight or more wins. That stretch was from 2001 to 2024. From 1966 through the end of the Jim Caldwell era in 2000, there were exactly two seasons of at least eight wins.
The Now
Jake Dickert has gotten to that level in his first year at Wake Forest. In obvious fashion, it is clear that this is a different era, even from most of Clawson’s tenure. The influx of transfers into the Wake football program is unprecedented. The money Wake and all schools are allowed to spend on players changes the playing field compared to what happened under the table and behind closed doors.
But eight wins in year one is a good start to a coach’s tenure, regardless of the era in which it happens. Is it sustainable? There is a large number of players who will have exhausted their eligibility. The starting defense will have lost a significant number of impact players after the Wake Forest Bowl game for this season.
The Deacs are 3-1 in November. It will be their first winning November, regardless of Saturday’s outcome, since 2008. They went 3-2 in November that year under Grobe on their way to an 8-5 season and a win in the EagleBank Bowl.
In typical Dickert fashion, it is the one in the 3-1 record that gnaws at him still as he reflects on the 42-7 loss at Florida State on November 1st. “But our guys have responded tremendously to that,” he said Monday.
How It Happens
He went on to say that responses to adversity throughout the season are one of the elements of this team that make him most proud. “I think that’s a cultural thing that these guys have really accepted within our team.” He said he could sense it in the players when they told him early on in the season that they were tired of coming close in winnable games. “I think we’ve proven to ourselves what our team is capable of. I don’t think anyone cares who gets the credit, either side of the football. And I think that’s been the strength of this team, and the Leadership Team deserves the credit on that.”
And therein lies another element of the Dickert era, an inclination not to take credit for much of anything. We count five weeks this season where, either in the post-game press conference or his weekly press conference, he has said he gets too much credit for any success the program is having.
Dickert Defers
Dickert is the winningest first-year coach in Wake Forest history. But he defers that acknowledgement. “The narrative is wrong. I’m not the winningest [first year] coach in Wake Forest history. I know that’s what it says. But our team has the most wins in the program’s start in Wake Forest history. That’s the way I look at it,” he said Monday.
He gives an abundance of credit to another first-year Deac, general manager Rob Schlaeger, who followed Dickert east from Washington State. He has referred to Schlaeger multiple times this season as “elite” at his job.
Dickert said Monday that the success is coming from everyone in the program, from staff to players, owning their responsibilities. The one thing he will take credit for is what he referred to as the program being aligned. “I think that my biggest job is to make sure our program is speaking the same thing and thinking the same way as we continue to go through this journey.”
A guy whom few Wake Forest fans had much familiarity with when he was hired in mid-December is trying to make sure that message bears results so that it continues from one season to the next.
The Bar
Last Saturday, using “we” as the preferred reference instead of “I,” Dickert said he hopes a new standard is being built. “We changed the bar completely,” he said. “And we did it through hard work. We did it through failures. We did it through adversity. And we did it through challenging each other.”
There are two games left this season. The new standard still has room for further elevation over the next few weeks. And then, with nary any time to take a breath, it is about what happens next to that standard. “I meant what I said after the game [last Saturday] that sustaining that type of success and the new type of expectation that will come from this is tough as well.”
First things first. Duke is ahead on Saturday, and we will have a preview of that game later this week.
Main Image: Craig Strobeck-Imagn Images
