First, I really hate giving this stupid thread air. And I agree that Dave Clawson knows more about football than I ever will; therefore I give him latitude to run his program.
That said...WF scores a lot of points because we run a quick tempo and run a lot of plays. This in turn also tires the defense, and contributes to the track meet score-fests that don't always go in WF's favor.
In my opinion, running plays a high tempo also increases the likelihood that WF will face injuries, which have crippled the team in most recent seasons.
There is no perfect system for ranking offensive efficiency; however "points scored" is definitely not at the top of the list.
Here's a site that evaluates overall Offensive Efficiency.
According to that site, comparing:
Northwestern
Boston College
Stanford
Wake Forest
from 2017-2020, Stanford has the best overall efficiency, and did so in 3 of the 4 years (BC and AJ Dillon were the most efficient in 2019). WF has not been the most efficient offense of those four schools in any of the four years.
Of course, I'm more concerned with W-L than points scored. The least efficient offense of those four has been Northwestern, but all they've done is go 29-19, reach their conference championship game twice, and finish ranked 3 of the 4 years. Pat Fitzgerald is doing something right.
To expand on this, FO ranks our offense as follows:
2016- (7-6, bowl vs. Temple) 99th
2017- (8-5, ATM bowl) 21st
2018- (7-6, Memphis) 63rd
2019- 7-6 (MSU), 55th
2020- 3-5 (Wisconsin), 33rd
With the pandemic year, the average ranking is 54.2. Without it, it's 59.5. Without the pandemic year or 2016, it's 46.3.
Here are our recruiting rankings on 247:
2012- 66
2013- 65
2014- 67
2015- 51
2016- 57
2017- 68
2018- 64
2019- 59
2020- 60
Average ranking is 61.9, and rising marginally (59.8 over the last six years). I would further submit that most of our higher-rated talent, in terms of recruiting rankings, comes on the offensive side of the ball to begin with, but there's no way I know of to quantify or compare that to other teams' recruits.
Uncoincidentally, the recruiting rankings are fairly similar, with some level of overperformance. If recruiting rankings don't matter and Clawson consistently finds underrated offensive talent (as some on this thread contend), then I would expect our offense to outperform its recruiting rankings by roughly the amount shown here. If recruiting rankings don't matter, Clawson consistently finds underrated offensive talent
and we do a better job of developing that talent, then I would expect our offense to outperform its recruiting rankings by more than the amount shown here. If rankings don't matter, Clawson finds talent, we develop that talent,
and our system maximizes that talent, then I would expect our offense to be among the best in the country and to vastly outperform its recruiting rankings.
If we had talent, development, and system all on an elite level, we would have an elite offense. The results do not bear that out. Personally, I think we have slightly-above average talent (with Clawson's eye for talent lifting us slightly above our recruiting rankings), good development (seriously hindered by an inability to keep players like Dortch, Surratt, Newman, and Walker), and a slightly-above-average system. Put those together, and you have an above-average-to-good offense, which is pretty much what we've seen on the field lately.