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Coach Clawson conference call with former players

Thanks Magic. The days of having index cards taped to the wall are over. I'm glad he's reaching out to the Alumni. We seemed to be under utilized by Grobe. He's unleashed a thousand bird dogs (just like other schools) and it will help.
 
A question was asked about how he plans to model his program from the other elite programs that have had recent successes such as Duke, Vanderbilt, and Stanford. He responded the he was "not going to acknowledge that other school in North Carolina" but stated that when he thinks about the elites, he thinks about Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Notre Dame and Stanford. He said that he plans to do the following: (1) aggressive redshirting, (2) style of football (although he didn’t get specific), and (3) development of players--which he said is critical. “Turning 3 star players into 5 star players when they get here is a must.”

:laugh: i love him
 
"He talked about recruiting from an "inside out" perspective. He and his staff will "blanket" NC, GA, SC, VA, DC and will "hit hard" FL and Texas. Also mentioned examples of areas of focus including areas like Nashville, NJ, PA and the Midwest."

Excellent. He's got the right areas targeted in my opinion.

He stated that the Wake recruiting department was "overburdened" and that he looked at our recruiting resources compared to our ACC rivals and decided that something needed to change. To that end, he's hiring a Director of Player Personnel and is looking at hiring another recruiting staff member.

"2) style of football (although he didn’t get specific)"

Maybe I'm wrong but that sounds like a pass happy spread offense to me. Putting points on the board attracts recruits in a way that focusing on time of possession does not.

Very glad to hear this.
 
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Player development has been seriously lacking in recent years. Would love to see kids progress on and off the field. Glad that Clawson recognizes this as a key to winning at Wake.

Thanks for the summary!
 
Talked to a buddy yesterday who was going to be on this call today. You could tell it meant a lot to him that Clawson reached out. Nice move by Coach.
 
The true test will come when we start playing games, but I really feel like Clawson is really going to put everything he has into this and I'm very optimistic that the on field results will come.
 
Thanks Magic. The days of having index cards taped to the wall are over. I'm glad he's reaching out to the Alumni. We seemed to be under utilized by Grobe. He's unleashed a thousand bird dogs (just like other schools) and it will help.

We have about as many former football players as any other school in college football.

For all the talk about what we don't have in terms of students, alums, fans, $$$, etc, we have about as many Wake Forest graduates who played football as any school in the country. And based on what's been posted here, we haven't been utilizing them.

Thanks for the recap, Magic. I'm glad you were able to make it. Sounds like there was good attendance for short notice two days before Christmas. Man, that's great to see. So much good stuff in there. As an educator, my favorite was the Career Night. I assume Claw was talking about bringing in football alums to come talk to players (and maybe recruits and their parents) about their time at Wake and preparation for life after Wake and after football. That's the type of thing the university needs to be doing to build that community between students and alums. It's something these boards have actually done very well that should be duplicated on campus for students and student-athletes alike.

Coach Claw seems to be spitting in the face of fans and employees who have talked for years about what we can't do and they're slurping it up. This is the culture change we need.
 
We have about as many former football players as any other school in college football.

For all the talk about what we don't have in terms of students, alums, fans, $$$, etc, we have about as many Wake Forest graduates who played football as any school in the country. And based on what's been posted here, we haven't been utilizing them.

Thanks for the recap, Magic. I'm glad you were able to make it. Sounds like there was good attendance for short notice two days before Christmas. Man, that's great to see. So much good stuff in there. As an educator, my favorite was the Career Night. I assume Claw was talking about bringing in football alums to come talk to players (and maybe recruits and their parents) about their time at Wake and preparation for life after Wake and after football. That's the type of thing the university needs to be doing to build that community between students and alums. It's something these boards have actually done very well that should be duplicated on campus for students and student-athletes alike.

Coach Claw seems to be spitting in the face of fans and employees who have talked for years about what we can't do and they're slurping it up. This is the culture change we need.

One thing I thought was cool this year is that we seemed to have a lot more former players around during games and it seems Clawson is going to make an effort to get them even more involved with things. One guy I'd like to see around the program is Jon Abbate, anybody know what he's up to these days?
 
One thing I thought was cool this year is that we seemed to have a lot more former players around during games and it seems Clawson is going to make an effort to get them even more involved with things. One guy I'd like to see around the program is Jon Abbate, anybody know what he's up to these days?

Heard he was working for or owned a personal training company.
 
Will they archive the interview? This should be its own thread. Good twitter comments.
 
First, Magic did a great job with the recap. The majority of guys who spoke on the call were graduates between 88 and 95. I didn't hear a question or comment from anybody who played during the Grobe era. There was a comment from a guy who was a equipment trainer during the early 50's teams on old campus- he stated he had a good group of former players (all in their 80s) who were very supportive of the new coach. So we got that going for us.

We have about as many former football players as any other school in college football.

For all the talk about what we don't have in terms of students, alums, fans, $$$, etc, we have about as many Wake Forest graduates who played football as any school in the country. And based on what's been posted here, we haven't been utilizing them.

Thanks for the recap, Magic. I'm glad you were able to make it. Sounds like there was good attendance for short notice two days before Christmas. Man, that's great to see. So much good stuff in there. As an educator, my favorite was the Career Night. I assume Claw was talking about bringing in football alums to come talk to players (and maybe recruits and their parents) about their time at Wake and preparation for life after Wake and after football. That's the type of thing the university needs to be doing to build that community between students and alums. It's something these boards have actually done very well that should be duplicated on campus for students and student-athletes alike.

Coach Claw seems to be spitting in the face of fans and employees who have talked for years about what we can't do and they're slurping it up. This is the culture change we need.

I wouldn't go as far as the bold. While I think Coach Clawson will bring a new energy to the program, I think he is fairly realistic about the challenges facing Wake, especially in recruiting. But he does seem to have a great handle on emphasizing the positives that Wake brings to the table- we are 1 of only "5 or 6" schools that bring the opportunity for BCS-level football and elite academics. But he was clear that there were a lot of guys we just couldn't recruit due to academics, which led to the comment about turning 3 stars into 5 stars.

Bad news is that he already recognizes the holes we have at RB and WR. We will apparently face some additional academic attrition at those spots, and he mentioned some WR (presumably Armstrong/Reynolds) might have to take reps at RB in the spring just to field a full offense.

He also said we would take 25 this year, so the next 5 weeks should be interesting.
 
Will they archive the interview? This should be its own thread. Good twitter comments.

Nah, it's just a bunch of "pre-parsed coach speak"

Clawson: I stole a lot from Coach Grobe when I was at Richmond. Sort of a blueprint for how a smaller school can compete.
 
Magic, great report and let me add my thanks for sharing.
 
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