{"id":70597,"date":"2024-12-19T13:17:08","date_gmt":"2024-12-19T18:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=70597"},"modified":"2025-09-20T14:41:22","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T18:41:22","slug":"70597-jake-dickert-says-the-work-begins-right-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2024\/12\/19\/70597-jake-dickert-says-the-work-begins-right-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Jake Dickert Says the Work Begins Right Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

The comparison in the mood at Wake Forest was undeniable. The farewell to Dave Clawson<\/a> had a couple of hundred university dignitaries, administrators, players, and fans on Tuesday. But talking about the future tends to get people much more amped up. Wake Forest introduced new head football coach Jake Dickert<\/a> Thursday before a packed room adjacent to Allegacy Stadium. In his comments, it was clear that Dickert believes the work begins right after the introductory event.<\/p>\n

Jake Dickert Rolling Up the Sleeves<\/h2>\n

Dickert replaces Dave Clawson who stepped down after 11 years at Wake Forest. This will be the second head coaching job for the 41-year-old Dickert as he leaves Washington State after three full seasons and a partial\/interim season in 2021.<\/p>\n

Dickert, his wife, and three kids were introduced by university president Dr. Susan Wente and athletic director John Currie to the hundreds of Wake faithful in attendance. There were also about eight current players in attendance, including running back Tate Carney<\/a> and linebacker Quincy Bryant. Wake is currently on Winter break, so Dickert said he will be meeting with many players via Zoom.<\/p>\n

The Players<\/h3>\n

Those meetings will take place immediately. As is as soon as he left the event. He commented that he has a meeting with running back Demond Claiborne at 1 pm Thursday. Claiborne announced on social media last week that he intended to return for another year. But that was before Clawson\u2019s resignation. In fact, the transfer portal is giving Wake Football whiplash right now. Some current players who had said they were returning changed their minds when they heard of Clawson\u2019s departure. Some who were coming to Wake from other schools also changed their mind and re-opened their recruitment.<\/p>\n

Dickert was asked how quickly he can get his hands around both the roster he inherits, and the options available in the portal, with a window that closes for non-Wake players in nine days. \u201cYou see this changing landscape of college football, and we are rolling up our sleeves,\u201d Dickert said. \u201cAs soon as we are done with these questions, it\u2019s immediately to the players.\u201d He said his key is building relationships with the current players.<\/p>\n

From there, it is portal shopping. Revenue sharing is expected to begin by late Spring 2025. The cap for all schools is $20.5 million. Wente and Currie both said the school will spend to the cap. That will be used for all Wake athletics. However much football gets, it puts Wake Forest in a spending ability that Clawson never had when it came to getting players from the portal. \u2018We will really use the portal in a positive way,\u201d Dickert said. \u201cWe will recruit people that really fit our program.\u201d He said there is already a plan in place as to how to approach the portal. The need for starters at certain positions and others for depth is large in scale.<\/p>\n

The Staff<\/h3>\n

He also will need to spend time putting together a staff. Most head coaches come with a staff in tow when they take on a new job. But in the weeks prior to Dickert taking the job at Wake Forest, the offensive and defensive coordinators the quarterbacks coach, and the running backs coach. That means there are a lot of openings to be filled. Dickert said his phone has been blowing up with people who he knows in the coaching community. He will also begin meeting with current Wake assistants starting Friday.<\/p>\n

Dickert said he told the players he would construct the best staff he could for them, but said it was going to require being \u201caggressively patient.\u201d There is going to be a process and it will both take time and need to happen quickly.<\/p>\n

The Resources<\/h3>\n

Dickert said he was drawn to Wake by the stability of the program and the university. \u201cOut of the turbulent, chaotic college football scene, stability here at Wake Forest was vitally important to me. And it\u2019s vitally important to my family.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new coach said the old coach was a critical resource during the decision-making process. Dickert spoke with Clawson about the circumstances surrounding major college football, where Wake Forest currently fits in, and where it could fit in down the road. \u201cCoach Clawson has been an amazing resource. He really has, \u201cDickert said. \u201cHe\u2019s had a bunch of special people around him really the last 11 years. I look forward to starting with those conversations tomorrow, (with the assistants). He (Clawson) shared his vision.\u201d<\/p>\n

With all of the turmoil at Washington State over the last three years, with the coaching change, the break up of the Pac 12, WAZZU, and Oregon State having nowhere else to go, the potential at Wake Forest is a seismic change for Dickert. \u201cThat was part of this process. We just didn\u2019t have the resources where I was at,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dickert joked that coming from Pullman to Winston-Salem was life-altering in and of itself. There is not a lot to Pullman. And Dickert\u2019s roots are in the Midwest. So how does he fit in here, in a part of the country where he really has no footprint? \u201cIt sounds like I\u2019ve got to work on my accent,\u201d he joked. Dickert used the word community repeatedly. He said his sons are eager to find their new favorite places to eat, newly convinced that it is a big city. \u201cTo me, coaching is serving. We\u2019re going to serve the players. We\u2019re going to serve the university. And we going to serve this community to the highest honor.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Jake<\/p>\n

New Wake Forest football coach Jake Dickert, (center), is welcomed by university president Dr. Susan Wente and athletic director John Currie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The comparison in the mood at Wake Forest was undeniable. The farewell to Dave Clawson had a couple of hundred university dignitaries, administrators, players, and fans on Tuesday. But talking about the future tends to get people much more amped up. Wake Forest introduced new head football coach Jake Dickert Thursday before a packed room […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":70604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,35643],"tags":[1135,9582,2584,1249],"class_list":["post-70597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-acc","category-wake-forest-demon-deacons","tag-dave-clawson","tag-jake-dickert","tag-john-currie","tag-wake-forest-demon-deacons"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70597"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70605,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70597\/revisions\/70605"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}