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Grobe or Clawson, who ya got?

That’s not a knock on Clawson btw. I’m just honestly shocked this thread went 8 pages. I’m ambivalent as to how LOWF we should judge Wake football, but I do believe we should be consistent.

If we are the type of school that gets excited about our football coach when he makes the college football equivalent of the CBI/NIT three years in a row, we don’t also get to be a school that thinks a few historically competitive years outweighs the best three year stretch our program has ever seen.
If Manning goes on the road and beats State and beats the shit out of Duke we all good.
 
Clawson needs to average 9 wins and 6 conference wins a year for the next three years in order to surpass Grobe through 8 seasons. Until he does either of those things once, this thread is stupid.

That's ludicrous considering the state of the program Clawson inherited from Grobe.
 
Clawson has hired six coordinators at Wake.

Elko - Outstanding
Sawvel - Fired midseason
Ruggerio - Pretty Good
Schier - Released after three seasons
Lineburg - Doing OK so far.
Hemphill - Too soon to tell, but looking good.

So Clawson has hired six coordinators in his five years at Wake. Two he fired. One moved on to much bigger and better positions.

A stellar track record in my mind doesn't include firing 1/3 because of performance or other issues.

I dunno. Firing 2 coordinators in 5 years seems pretty good to me, especially when one was in place only because your badass coordinator took a job with ND.

Who was the coordinator that it looked certain was coming to Wake before Sawvel? Like he backed out at the last minute or something similar.
 
That's ludicrous considering the state of the program Clawson inherited from Grobe.

The program was losing, just like the 2-9 team Grobe inherited. Are you talking about the players?

Kevin Johnson 1st round NFL draft pick
Marquel Lee 5th round NFL draft pick
Duke Ejiofor - 6th round NFL draft pick
Brandon Chubb - NFL practice squad
Bud Noel - NFL practice squad

Both Mike Weaver and Alex Kinal were top 3 players statistically as a kicker and punter at Wake and 4 year starters. Not to mention a very deep Dline, many of whom started on 2 of the three bowl games Wake won.

Wide receiver and oline were thin. Although I remember being excited about Tyree Harris, Brandon Terry, Jared Crump, Cortez Lewis, and Jonathan Williams. They didn't pan out. There wasn't much at rb, which was uncharacteristic of Grobe and his time at wake. We had many good to great RBs under Grobe. Lobo recruited and coached a lot of the oline. Our biggest issues were on offensive playcalling. Grobe's fault for not making a change sooner there, and probably the biggest black mark against him.

On Offense he inherited John Wolford, the best QB wake has ever had statistically in 2 seasons. And Cam Serigne, owns every TE record at Wake Forest and some ACC records.

The next three years are all Clawson's guys. The statute of limitations on Grobe's guys is over, even though he was handed a VERY good and deep defense. and two generational offensive players. This year was all Clawson players and he went 6-6 and 3-5 in the ACC. He had to play 2 QBs who hadn't seen a college snap because the guy Grobe gave him was a 4 year starter.

I don't buy that Grobe left him nothing. Grobe's coaches and Grobe weren't getting enough out the the players anymore. They were fired. Clawson should be here. But I don't understand the animosity, specifically from you, toward Grobe.

Grobe did not attract good assistants when 75% of the assistants he brought with him left in his first 7 years. That is on Grobe. But he continued to recruit, continued to find special players, and left Clawson something to build with.
 
The program was losing, just like the 2-9 team Grobe inherited. Are you talking about the players?

Kevin Johnson 1st round NFL draft pick
Marquel Lee 5th round NFL draft pick
Duke Ejiofor - 6th round NFL draft pick
Brandon Chubb - NFL practice squad
Bud Noel - NFL practice squad

Both Mike Weaver and Alex Kinal were top 3 players statistically as a kicker and punter at Wake and 4 year starters. Not to mention a very deep Dline, many of whom started on 2 of the three bowl games Wake won.

Wide receiver and oline were thin. Although I remember being excited about Tyree Harris, Brandon Terry, Jared Crump, Cortez Lewis, and Jonathan Williams. They didn't pan out. There wasn't much at rb, which was uncharacteristic of Grobe and his time at wake. We had many good to great RBs under Grobe. Lobo recruited and coached a lot of the oline. Our biggest issues were on offensive playcalling. Grobe's fault for not making a change sooner there, and probably the biggest black mark against him.

On Offense he inherited John Wolford, the best QB wake has ever had statistically in 2 seasons. And Cam Serigne, owns every TE record at Wake Forest and some ACC records.

The next three years are all Clawson's guys. The statute of limitations on Grobe's guys is over, even though he was handed a VERY good and deep defense. and two generational offensive players. This year was all Clawson players and he went 6-6 and 3-5 in the ACC. He had to play 2 QBs who hadn't seen a college snap because the guy Grobe gave him was a 4 year starter.

I don't buy that Grobe left him nothing. Grobe's coaches and Grobe weren't getting enough out the the players anymore. They were fired. Clawson should be here. But I don't understand the animosity, specifically from you, toward Grobe.

Grobe did not attract good assistants when 75% of the assistants he brought with him left in his first 7 years. That is on Grobe. But he continued to recruit, continued to find special players, and left Clawson something to build with.

I've posted this here before, but you seem to give Grobe a lot of credit for John Wolford. Maybe Grobe recognized him and got on him, but I asked Wolford before starting the season about his recruiting story and he said unreservedly that Grobe and his staff had gotten "lazy," and that's why ECU was in the picture. So Wolford seems just as much Clawson's recruit as Grobe's. Thus the "Clawson inherited Wolford from Grobe" narrative is not totally accurate.
 
That's ludicrous considering the state of the program Clawson inherited from Grobe.

I agree. Clawson inherited a better program and still has that far to go to catch him. I actually think he could do it if we stay healthy and the schedule breaks the right way (neither of which has happened the past two years) but think we should wait until he actually does it before crowning him the GOAT at Wake.
 
I've posted this here before, but you seem to give Grobe a lot of credit for John Wolford. Maybe Grobe recognized him and got on him, but I asked Wolford before starting the season about his recruiting story and he said unreservedly that Grobe and his staff had gotten "lazy," and that's why ECU was in the picture. So Wolford seems just as much Clawson's recruit as Grobe's. Thus the "Clawson inherited Wolford from Grobe" narrative is not totally accurate.

Yeah, I don't really know the whole story and have never had a conversation with John about it. It may be lazy to say that he was Grobe's guy. Elrod did most of his recruiting, and Elrod, the scum that he is, wasn't lazy and a good recruiter. I still can't comprehend what happened with Elrod. A guy I knew for 3 years, who was a darn good man and coach, appears not to be. Or maybe he was, and something snapped... It's hard to reconcile and I think about it often.

I'm not sure where Grobe "got lazy" recruiting, if this was during Grobe's final season, maybe a conversation with Wellman happened where it was understood this might be his last season, who knows. Grobe had a gifted QB in Tanner Price they did absolutely zilch with, so the fact that Clawson turned Wolford into what he was, he certainly deserves all the credit for that.

I think the point I'm making is there was talent on the roster when Clawson took over. He had some NFL talent at 5-6 positions on defense, albeit young, and 2 future stars for our program on offense and a very solid kicking game. Saying the cupboard was bare is just lazy and not the truth. The program was in an awful spot with some good players who hadn't reached their potential yet. Clawson got a lot out of them and then some and has turned the program around from where it was trending. I still think Grobe did more for Wake Forest, and admitting bias, I'd take Grobe.

I'm a big fan of Clawson, and I don't or didn't intend to disparage him in any way. We've been a mediocre football team, but have won some games we weren't supposed to. I'm looking forward to seeing what he does, building on top 50 recruiting classes year in and year out.
 
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This would never happen, but there is/was a defensive assistant opening at Wake and Brad Lambert became available after getting fired from UNCC. He stopped by practice the other day as well. He lead the recruiting for many of the fresh deacs, including Abbate and Arnoux. Obviously Clawson would probably politely decline any more of Grobe's staff having access to his practices, but it will still be cool.
 
I agree. Clawson inherited a better program and still has that far to go to catch him. I actually think he could do it if we stay healthy and the schedule breaks the right way (neither of which has happened the past two years) but think we should wait until he actually does it before crowning him the GOAT at Wake.

Let me get this straight. You’re saying clawson inherited a better program than Grobe?
 
If Clawson left today, it’s Grobe — though Clawson’s successor would inherit the better program.

My gut is it ends up being Clawson.
 
If Clawson left today, it’s Grobe — though Clawson’s successor would inherit the better program.

My gut is it ends up being Clawson.

This says it well. When I've given my vote to Clawson, I'm sure it's recency bias and I'm voting more on the basis of the potential we all see. Grobe really did break the ceiling on what could be done at LOWF.
 
Program is a little nebulous, I could see the argument Clawson inherited a better one. But Grobe certainly had more talent to work with right away, and even then we only had one bowl win to show from it in his first five years -- two less than DC
 
The ACC is much tougher today than when we won our conference championship. We cannot measure Grobe and Clawson by numbers alone or by numbers primarily.
 
Program is a little nebulous, I could see the argument Clawson inherited a better one. But Grobe certainly had more talent to work with right away, and even then we only had one bowl win to show from it in his first five years -- two less than DC

If there were 33 bowls in 2001 (like there is in 2018), Grobe would have 2 bowl games. He also went 3-5 in conference twice and didn't make a bowl in his first 5 years, just like Clawson in 2 of his 3 bowls. Grobe played tougher OOC by a good margin his first 5 years. Nebraska, Purdue and Vandy replaced by Delaware, Rice and Tulane likely yield 2 more bowl games for Grobe in 2003 and 2005. Their first five years are very comparable. Obviously in year 6, Grobe won an ACC title. I'll concede that the ACC is tougher today than it was in 2001, so a 9-3, 6-2 or 5-3 finish in ACC this year would be comparable to winning the ACC in 2006. If Clawson does that this year, I'd consider his results about equal to Grobe's through 6 years, even though Grobe won the conference.
 
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If its Grobe or Clawson straight up, you can't discount the last 5 years of Jim's reign. It was disgusting and 100% due to Grobe's nepotism and lack of desire to recruit. My first "adult" purchase was Wake season tickets for the 2009 season, which I kept for the next four years. I finally gave them up at the end of the 2012 season when I got sick of watching Grobe pick grass, Campanero run around the sideline screaming like a lone maniac, and almost nobody else doing jack shit. The end of the Grobe era was pathetic. He, nor his lifelong lieutenants, cared.
 
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