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\u2019s not unprecedented at Wake, but it is rarified air.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
But eight wins in year one is a good start to a coach\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
The Deacs are 3-1 in November. It will be their first winning November, regardless of Saturday\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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<\/sup>. \u201cBut our guys have responded tremendously to that,\u201d he said Monday.<\/p>\n 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. \u201cI think that\u2019s a cultural thing that these guys have really accepted within our team.\u201d 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. \u201cI think we\u2019ve proven to ourselves what our team is capable of. I don\u2019t think anyone cares who gets the credit, either side of the football. And I think that\u2019s been the strength of this team, and the Leadership Team deserves the credit on that.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Dickert is the winningest first-year coach in Wake Forest history. But he defers that acknowledgement. \u201cThe narrative is wrong. I\u2019m not the winningest [first year] coach in Wake Forest history. I know that\u2019s what it says. But our team <\/em>has the most wins in the program\u2019s start in Wake Forest history. That\u2019s the way I look at it,\u201d he said Monday.<\/p>\n 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 \u201celite\u201d at his job.<\/p>\n 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. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\nHow It Happens<\/h3>\n
Dickert Defers<\/h3>\n
The Bar<\/h3>\n