{"id":76810,"date":"2025-08-28T13:00:43","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T17:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=76810"},"modified":"2025-09-20T14:41:03","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T18:41:03","slug":"76810-centering-wakes-demond-claiborne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/08\/28\/76810-centering-wakes-demond-claiborne\/","title":{"rendered":"Centering Wake’s Demond Claiborne"},"content":{"rendered":"

The focal point of the Wake Forest offense is not some state secret. There is no cloak and dagger as to the blueprint. Yes, there is a new head coach, a new starting quarterback, and a new offense for the Demon Deacons. But at the beginning, the middle, and the end of the day, there is running back Demond Claiborne. The one thing that is a constant work in progress is, as football coaches and players love to say, keeping the main thing the main thing. Centering Demond Claiborne is a part of the bigger picture at Wake Forest.<\/p>\n

The Player<\/h3>\n

There is no question as to Claiborne\u2019s skill set. His 1,049 rushing yards last year put him seventh on the all-time single-season record list for Wake Forest. His 11 rushing touchdowns tie him for sixth on the all-time list. And that was playing in an offense that about 25% of the time was \u201cslow-mesh,\u201d which puts the running back into a scrum at hand-off. Finding the open field was rarely easy in those particular sets.<\/p>\n

Despite his skills, there were games where he was on the sidelines late in the fourth quarter of close games. Coaches quietly questioned his physical stamina and ability to be a key element on offense late in games. It didn\u2019t stop them from using him as a kick returner on special teams, in addition to the running game assignments. But they whispered anyway.<\/p>\n

Claiborne became known to have a somewhat mercurial tone and tenor. His thoughts on his time at Wake could change from one hour to the next depending on who was asking.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s New<\/h3>\n

Claiborne tinkered with the idea of going into the transfer portal. His predecessor at Wake running back, Justice Ellison<\/a>, spent his final year of college football at Indiana with a certain level of success. His 848 rushing yards for the Hoosiers were a career high. The coaching change at Wake seems to have been transformative for both team and player. New head coach Jake Dickert made it clear that his top priority was keeping Claiborne at Wake. They met the same day as Dickert\u2019s introductory press conference. According to Claiborne, he hit it off with the new coach immediately.<\/p>\n

There is no longer any doubt about how Claiborne perceives his role with the team. He is open about his affection for Dickert\u2019s new power spread offense. One of the top priorities of the scheme is to get Claiborne the ball in the open field and let him do the rest. In late January, Dickert said the plan was simple. \u201cThat run game is going to be diverse. It\u2019s going to be attacking.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Praise<\/h3>\n

Claiborne and his skill set are not a secret to much of anyone in college football. He has gone from third-team All-ACC last season to no fewer than four pre-season watchlists for awards and was put on the 2025 Athlon Pre-season All-ACC team. He was put on Bruce Feldman’s annual \u201cFreak\u2019s List\u201d that highlights players of particular physical and athletic abilities. Claiborne was 63rd<\/sup> out of 101 players. It was noted in the section on Claiborne that he can now squat 500 pounds.<\/p>\n

As Wake opens the season this week against Kennesaw State, we spoke with Owls head coach Jerry Mack this week. He said Claiborne is an NFL-level player. Mack said he expects to see Claiborne there next season.<\/p>\n

His own quarterback added to the praise. This week, Robby Ashford<\/a> proclaimed of Claiborne, \u201cHe\u2019s the best running back in the country. And I\u2019ll stand on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Centering
Photo courtesy: Tony Siracusa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Keeping Claiborne Centered<\/h3>\n

With the adulation and hype being heaped onto what was already a healthy amount of confidence, how does Dickert keep his star running back focused on \u201ckeeping the main thing the main thing?\u201d<\/p>\n

He gave credit to his running back\u2019s support system. We\u2019ve been very on top of what he needs,\u201d Dickert said earlier this week. \u201cAnd that is keeping his circle tight.\u201d That circle includes people right there in the building, like running back coach Effern Reed and strength and conditioning coach Ben Iannacchione, according to Dickert.<\/p>\n

Still, they are not trying to slow down the Claiborne Express in any way. \u201cHe\u2019s worked his tail off to get to this point. He deserves the notoriety.\u201d Dickert added that he has conversations with his team about social media and other outside elements. \u201cWhen you win, people love you. When you lose, they\u2019re against you. And it\u2019s the same people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Claiborne on Claiborne<\/h3>\n

The running back said he is able to block out what he called the outside noise. \u201cCoach Reed and Coach Ben have been excellent guys on my journey, so far, as being guys that I can just bounce stuff off of,\u201d he said. He also said he has relied on a few teammates, past and present, who were with him when the path wasn\u2019t so straightforward, and can see the progress now.<\/p>\n

But that tight circle rarely leaves the building. \u201cI typically keep family out of it. I love family. But they\u2019ve got a lot of stuff going on back home. Mom\u2019s still working her tail off. So I just kind of let them focus on the things back there,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

The Look Ahead<\/h3>\n

Claiborne has not taken much contact during training camp. It is a decision based on preserving the body of a critical part of the offense.<\/p>\n

He jokes that because of \u201cthud play\u201d (stopping play when definitive contact is made), he has lost more yards than even the quarterbacks.\u00a0 Claiborne said he goes over those plays with Dickert to make sure the coach knows he, Claiborne, would not have gone down on that contact.<\/p>\n

He also will not be the primary kick returner this season. It\u2019s not that he is not willing to play the role. But again, keeping \u201cthe main thing the main thing,\u201d means having #1 in the backfield at the end of games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited to get in the game, adjust on the fly, get hit, and hopefully make some big plays.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Main Image: Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The focal point of the Wake Forest offense is not some state secret. There is no cloak and dagger as to the blueprint. Yes, there is a new head coach, a new starting quarterback, and a new offense for the Demon Deacons. But at the beginning, the middle, and the end of the day, there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":72906,"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":[7,2,17,35643],"tags":[10629,9582,9186,1249],"class_list":["post-76810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-acc","category-featured","category-news","category-wake-forest-demon-deacons","tag-demond-claiborne","tag-jake-dickert","tag-robby-ashford","tag-wake-forest-demon-deacons"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76810","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=76810"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76814,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76810\/revisions\/76814"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}