{"id":84537,"date":"2025-12-30T16:48:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T21:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=84537"},"modified":"2025-12-30T16:48:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T21:48:16","slug":"wake-forest-football-walking-the-fine-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2025\/12\/30\/wake-forest-football-walking-the-fine-line\/","title":{"rendered":"Wake Forest Football Walking the Fine Line"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Wake Forest enters bowl week prep, there is a fine line to be walked. You want the players to have fun. After all, making a bowl is a reward for a good season, and taking part in the activities of bowl week has its merits. But there is also the effort to win, to not finish the season on a losing note.<\/p>\n

Mixing Business and Fun<\/h3>\n

Wake Forest head coach Jake Dickert is walking that line this week, along with Mississippi State head coach Jeff Lebby.\u00a0 The week leading up to the Duke\u2019s Mayo Bowl for the players and staff includes going to the Hornets games, getting a NASCAR tour of Charlotte Motor Speedway, and tending to the community at Second Harvest Food Bank. And there is the matter of trying to win the game.<\/p>\n

Dickert met with the media on Tuesday morning after the Demon Deacons’ practice at Providence Day High School.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think anytime you sacrifice what winning requires, you\u2019ve got a problem,\u201d Dickert said. He said Monday\u2019s workout was not quite up to his standards. So in the team meeting before Tuesday\u2019s practice<\/a>, he addressed specific concerns. \u201cI think the message was clear today. I felt the energy. Felt the finish habits.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said there is the challenge of not having played for five weeks, starting a week of workouts, taking days off for Christmas, and then getting into specific bowl week workouts. But he added that while there is the fun and the rewards, it does not erase the work that goes into winning. \u201cWe\u2019re sitting in a room this morning at the Westin in downtown Charlotte, in a place that nobody thought we could be 11 months ago. We built a process, and everybody needs to buy into it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Stepping Up<\/h3>\n

There are plenty of players farther down the regular-season depth chart who will get extra looks this week. Running back Demond Claiborne<\/a> is on his way to training for the NFL workouts ahead. Receivers Chris Barnes and Micah Mayes will be entering the transfer portal when it opens on Friday, as will defensive lineman Mateen Ibirogba. \u201cWhether you\u2019re going to the NFL, or you\u2019re a freshman guy, or you\u2019re a guy that\u2019s trying to be a backup to a starter, growth is required.\u201d He said the guideline is what each player did as an individual with the 13 extra practices they have had over the last three weeks.<\/p>\n

Dickert said the Wake offense works from the inside out. Accordingly, he is encouraged that the offensive line will be there intact for Friday\u2019s game. As for the other positions, \u201cWe\u2019ve had 13 days to narrow in on their role and their responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then there is the quarterback position, where one is playing in his last college football game, while the other is trying to make an impression to stake a claim for next year. Dickert said he will make in-game decisions on the playing time of veteran Robby Ashford and Deshawn Purdie. \u201cWe\u2019re going to play series to series. My obligation is to win this bowl game, and we\u2019re approaching it that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coaches Settling In<\/h3>\n

And there is the matter of getting the coach in game-ready status. \u201cIn five weeks, coaches get restless and start drawing up a bunch of s**t against the wall and see what sticks,\u201d he said with a laugh when it was suggested he might go deeper into the playbook than he would in a conference game. \u201cSo there is always that, and having fun and executing some of those types of plays and moments,\u201d he continued. \u201cBut I will say it again. There\u2019s only three other teams that have nine-plus wins in Wake Forest history. What a cool opportunity for this team.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say some of the fun of the week does not come into play for the coach himself. \u201cWe\u2019re going to get in a race car here in a little bit at the motor speedway. [I\u2019m] really jacked up and excited about that to be honest,\u201d he said. \u201cI think my wife\u2019s a little nervous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Main Image: Tony Siracusa<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Wake Forest enters bowl week prep, there is a fine line to be walked. You want the players to have fun. After all, making a bowl is a reward for a good season, and taking part in the activities of bowl week has its merits. But there is also the effort to win, to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1534,"featured_media":84543,"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":[7,35643],"tags":[6945,9582],"class_list":["post-84537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-acc","category-wake-forest-demon-deacons","tag-dukes-mayo-bowl","tag-jake-dickert"],"modified_by":"Tony Siracusa, CFB Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84537","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=84537"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84544,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84537\/revisions\/84544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}