The issue is the defensive side of the squad. The recruiting quality has fallen quite a bit since the start of Clawsons tenure. Mike Elko is an outstanding defensive coach. He needs a much better DC to turn that around.
2016: 3 out of top 5 rated players were on defense. I'd do a top 5 production wise here but there's so much. Offense(Newman/Carney/Dortch/I'll vouch for just how good Je'Vionte Nash has been this year) Defense(Boogie/Ja'Cquez/Essang/Masterson/Tra Redd/Kamara)
2017: 4 out of top 5 rated players were defense. Top 5 overall players in that class production wise: 3 offensive(Sage/Roberson/Tom) 2 Defensive(Ja'sir/Tyler Williams)
2018: 3 out of top 5 rated players were defense. Top 6(if i left any of these guys off people would be pissed) overall players production wise: 2 offensive(Hartman/Sciba) 4 Defensive(Nasir/Bothroyd/Smenda/Johns)
2019: 2 of top 5 rated were defense. Top 5 in production 3 offensive(Greene/Morin/Walker) 2 Defensive(McCollum/Rucker) with me not counting Miles fox as a "recruit"
This is not rooted in fact. A very telling thing, shout out to sir Conner O Neal, this this line from his most recent film review: "It’s Louisville’s sixth possession and it starts with 11:21 left in the second quarter. For a Wake Forest team that had its coach admit last week that it wasn’t in game shape (as of Tuesday), that’s a problem."
That happens more often than we care to admit and that is asking a defense to fail. 2018 is the only year you can point to a defensive coordinator and say "hey that was the issue" and appropriately Clawson addressed it. This was a team that gave up 24.6 points a game in their first 8 games last year(and that's WITH a 62 point game against UL) and then you look at the final list of people out as the season went on: Sage/Scotty/cade wasn't healthy/CBS/Nate Gilliam/Tyler Williams/Sulaiman Kamara/Rondell Bothroyd/Luke Masterson/Justin Strnad/Nasir Greer.
We all pretty easily jumped on the idea of "wow they're down their outside receivers and 1.5 running backs, the offense probably wont be great!" and for a large part they weren't great. Clemson is clemson so omit. There was.. 1? game where the offense didn't just die for 2+ quarters and that was Duke. Syracuse the offense was a dumpster for over 2 quarters, Pinstripe bowl they threw 3 TDs in the first half and then just couldnt move the ball the rest of the game due to injuries and sheer ineffectiveness.
Duke, you go "wow 27 points against duke cmon" a reminder that 14 of those were kick returns for TDs so the defense gave up 13 points and sub 300 yards. Against syracuse, where Kamara/Nasir both went down, 17 points in the first half(where again the offense turned the ball over 5 times and scored 3 points), 13 in the second half. Pinstripe bowl 20 in the first half(not great!) but 7 points, 2 fumbles, and a missed FG in the 2nd half where the offense didn't do anything and the defense had to put their best corner at S because no one was left
Conor and I have both touched on the injuries for this year and also the fact that you don't really know who's out week to week with contact tracing(conor on that one) so again bit hard to blame a coordinator or talent when the 3rd/4th/5th string is walking out there all but 3 weeks of the year