Barry Faircloth opened the line. Thanked everyone for joining and mentioned that it was Coach Clawson's idea to spearhead this call.
No roll call was taken. Warren Belin was on the line with Coach Clawson.
Coach Clawson welcomed everyone and mentioned that it was just two weeks ago today that he was sitting in his kitchen being interviewed for the job. Said that he REALLY wanted the job. He was offered the position that afternoon, was on campus 18 hours later, and then spent the next four days meeting with recruits and "shoring" up the class.
He stated that his next biggest priority was the coaching staff.
He spoke generally about the coaching staff but said specifically that Warren Belin is being retained and that 1-2 others from the former staff are being interviewed--most likely for the OL and DL positions. He spoke very specifically later about the make-up of the coaching staff but asked that we not share the specific information because it's not official yet (i.e., some still coaching at Bowling Green).
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. Says that he doesn’t worry about missing players; he just wants to find the right players. 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. He committed that if any of the former players call and recommend a recruit, that a point person will be put on the case to follow up, that the player will be given a thorough evaluation, and then the point person will report back to the alum.
Stated that there are only 5-6 elite universities in the country on Wake's level and that Wake's "value proposition" needs to be emphasized. Stated that Wake players need to see the value of the education.
He mentioned other ways to get the football alums involved and said that he will continue the Spring reunion and that he has other creative ideas about how to get us involved (including a “Career Night”) and that he wants to take the Spring reunion to another level.
He entertained questions. Someone mentioned that they’d contacted Grobe a few times but got no response. Clawson stated that he was not going to be critical of Coach Grobe, but again stated that the recruiting department had been short staffed.
He mentioned that he has great respect for Coach Grobe and "stole" a lot from Grobe's techniques when Clawson was at Richmond.
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.”
Talked specifically about what we could do to help recruiting but was mindful of the strict NCAA rules. Stated that we cannot contact players directly on behalf of the program.
Said that we're hurting at RB and WR and that if any of us still has eligibility, he can get us reps in the spring.
Most of the questions came from folks in my era (early '90s).
He had tons of great one liners, seems to relate to everyone, says all the right things, and is being very strategic about how to turn around this program. I'm sold.