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WF @ VT (10/14), 3:30PM on ACC Network

mercurydime said:
The prospect of ditching Clawson and its discussion is a waste of bandwidth.
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Imagine the amount of idiocy involved in that thinking right now. "Um, most consistently successful coach in Wake Forest history, loves Wake Forest and appears wants to stay here, NIL and other factors probably makes Wake Forest a even harder job for an incoming coach, but let's show him the door because he made a bad judgement on a QB and is having a down year that used to be common place around here until he arrived." 1697553053352.png
 
wufu bufu said:
I think there's less of a "let's ditch Clawson" mentality and more of a "is Clawson done?" thought process.
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Right. We’re right to wonder if this is part of the beginning of the end (like 3-9 2010 was for Grobe) even if we don’t want to fire him after the season is over.
 
The big question is how well and how quickly will Clawson and staff adapt to the new player procurement paradigm.

He did very well with the "develop players" philosophy wherein players mostly stayed at the school that originally signed them. The Covid year helped as most players stayed put for that season. Massive, impressive facilities were a significant part of enticing players to sign.

The rules changed significantly with the instant eligibility of transfers and now the legalized ability of players to accept payments from third parties.

It's harder to get players to come to Wake, go to class, study, workout, study film and not get to play and stick around. Other coaches offer more immediate playing time and less study time. Wake academics make it difficult to bring in upper class transfers unless they are grad transfers.

The free-for-all NIL payments has Wake currently at a disadvantage. For some, it meant the bags could be on the table instead of behind a light pole in the parking lot. Wake currently is a small market player. Clawson and staff are stiff learning how to maximize Wake under the new rules. The recruiting algorithm may need some work to account for the NIL situation and instant eligibility of transfers.

Sometimes coaches just miss on guys. That seems to have happened with O-line and QB. O-line in particular is a position where you don't know what you have until you have invested 2 or 3 years of development time.

QB seems to have everybody puzzled. Why has a guy who looked so good in practice played so badly in live games. Maybe not being hit for three years changed his thinking processes. Maybe he is spending too much time looking for the best option rather than taking the best available right now option.
 
PhDeac said:
Right. We’re right to wonder if this is part of the beginning of the end (like 3-9 2010 was for Grobe) even if we don’t want to fire him after the season is over.
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At that point Grobe was showing almost zero concern about losses and was spending more time on the golf course than the recruiting trail though, it's very clear that Clawson is too competitive and angry about the losing to be there yet.
 
PhDeac said:
Right. We’re right to wonder if this is part of the beginning of the end (like 3-9 2010 was for Grobe) even if we don’t want to fire him after the season is over.
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If this is the beginning of the end, I don't think it's a matter of lack of trying. I still think Clawson is working as hard and wants to win as much as ever. It's funny, the coaches show is at that sports bar place with the golf simulator and Stan keeps trying to get Clawson to hit some and Clawson won't go near it. He knows the reputation Grobe got and he wants none of it.
 
I think it's probably the beginning of the end, but not because of Clawson. We are beginning to see the effects of NIL: it's all about the money, and we don't have enough. Forbes and now (apparently) Clawson have said the thing that matters most (if not the only thing that matters) is NIL money. We are beginning to see the effect that will have on college sports.

I applaud RTQ's efforts (DM me and I'll contribute; I hope others do too). I find it troubling, however, that at least some avid fans don't know about this initiative. Our small fanbase is crippling at best. If we are going to make a run at this, we have to overcome our small fanbase with greater participation. At the end of the day, I just don't know if there are enough people out there who care enough to participate. I hope there are, but the math does not favor us. As such, we have to be really good at the ancillary stuff (messaging, promotion, etc.).

Finally, I think Clawson would be more upset if fans weren't freaking out. He wants to take WFU to the big boy table and all that entails, and say what you will, he has done a good job so far. I think he can handle- and probably welcomes- the passion.

Whether he can get us there has very little to do with our current QB fiasco. It's up to the fanbase.
 
I'd love to see donor funding for all FBS schools to see where we fall over the last 10-15 years. I bet it's far less bleak than you guys are making it out to be, and pretty middle-tier vs. bottom of the barrel.

As we've discussed, donating to NIL is not the same as donating to scholarships, facility upgrades, etc., but if the school/RTQ can do a good job fund raising, I'm not bought in to the "NIL is the end of Wake Forest football" argument.

Are we really trailing that far behind the likes of NC State, Rutgers, Mississippi State, Arizona, Kansas, etc in terms of football $ donations? If we are, do all of those randomly picked schools have elite brand new facilities in recent years?
 
Kent said:
I think it's probably the beginning of the end, but not because of Clawson. We are beginning to see the effects of NIL: it's all about the money, and we don't have enough. Forbes and now (apparently) Clawson have said the thing that matters most (if not the only thing that matters) is NIL money. We are beginning to see the effect that will have on college sports.

I applaud RTQ's efforts (DM me and I'll contribute; I hope others do too). I find it troubling, however, that at least some avid fans don't know about this initiative. Our small fanbase is crippling at best. If we are going to make a run at this, we have to overcome our small fanbase with greater participation. At the end of the day, I just don't know if there are enough people out there who care enough to participate. I hope there are, but the math does not favor us. As such, we have to be really good at the ancillary stuff (messaging, promotion, etc.).

Finally, I think Clawson would be more upset if fans weren't freaking out. He wants to take WFU to the big boy table and all that entails, and say what you will, he has done a good job so far. I think he can handle- and probably welcomes- the passion.

Whether he can get us there has very little to do with our current QB fiasco. It's up to the fanbase.
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There used to be some concern about leveling the playing field, look at the implementation of the 85 scholly limit. I've read stories where when they weren't limited, programs like Alabama would offer guys they never had any intention of playing in games, but just to keep guys they felt might be good players elsewhere from going to those other schools. Now, any semblance of leveling the playing field is gone. The elite programs will continue to be elite, unless they just don't embrace the NIL and transfer portal like Dabo is doing. That will change if Clemson keeps underachieving or they will find a coach who does embrace the portal. Programs like Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, Michigan, etc. will continue to pull in the best recruits, but now have the ability to go out and get great players from other schools to fill gaps when those 4 and 5 stars don't work out or get injured. Florida State fell off because their recruiting fell off for multiple years, now if a program like that has a bad recruiting year, just go out and bring in abunch of proven players through the portal and pay them.
 
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I certainly see the angle of "does he want to keep doing it in this landscape?", kinda like what Roy said regarding how everything was trending.
 
Kent said:
I think it's probably the beginning of the end, but not because of Clawson. We are beginning to see the effects of NIL: it's all about the money, and we don't have enough. Forbes and now (apparently) Clawson have said the thing that matters most (if not the only thing that matters) is NIL money. We are beginning to see the effect that will have on college sports.

I applaud RTQ's efforts (DM me and I'll contribute; I hope others do too). I find it troubling, however, that at least some avid fans don't know about this initiative. Our small fanbase is crippling at best. If we are going to make a run at this, we have to overcome our small fanbase with greater participation. At the end of the day, I just don't know if there are enough people out there who care enough to participate. I hope there are, but the math does not favor us. As such, we have to be really good at the ancillary stuff (messaging, promotion, etc.).

Finally, I think Clawson would be more upset if fans weren't freaking out. He wants to take WFU to the big boy table and all that entails, and say what you will, he has done a good job so far. I think he can handle- and probably welcomes- the passion.

Whether he can get us there has very little to do with our current QB fiasco. It's up to the fanbase.
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PM sent
 
tigerswood said:
Are we really trailing that far behind the likes of NC State, Rutgers, Mississippi State, Arizona, Kansas, etc in terms of football $ donations? If we are, do all of those randomly picked schools have elite brand new facilities in recent years?
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the short answer is no, because of the current board of RTQ. That however isn't sustainable long term.

That said, Kansas basketball is another animal.
 
tigerswood said:
I'd love to see donor funding for all FBS schools to see where we fall over the last 10-15 years. I bet it's far less bleak than you guys are making it out to be, and pretty middle-tier vs. bottom of the barrel.

As we've discussed, donating to NIL is not the same as donating to scholarships, facility upgrades, etc., but if the school/RTQ can do a good job fund raising, I'm not bought in to the "NIL is the end of Wake Forest football" argument.

Are we really trailing that far behind the likes of NC State, Rutgers, Mississippi State, Arizona, Kansas, etc in terms of football $ donations? If we are, do all of those randomly picked schools have elite brand new facilities in recent years?
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I think the surprise might be in the opposite direction. Schools like those you mention have 5x-8x the alumni base that we have - those kind of numbers are hard to overcome.
Our facilities are great but they are not a game changer and won't make up for a lack of money in the recruit's pocket. They are good enough to get us in the game but the $$ will push kids elsewhere unless we pony up.
Every decent program has facilities that are "good enough", every decent program gets TV exposure, every decent program plays in a decent conference against big-name opponents, every decent program can point to players in the NFL, etc. etc. - $$ is now the main differentiating factor - and we need more than we have.
 
While comments of wanting to be at the big boy table, Wake is perpetually stuck at the kid’s table during Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner.
Edited to say, along with NC State.
 
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I mean I guess...we made the conference title game two years ago. We have the competitive ability but the landscape, as noted, is changing rapidly
 
scooter84 said:
I think the surprise might be in the opposite direction. Schools like those you mention have 5x-8x the alumni base that we have - those kind of numbers are hard to overcome.
Our facilities are great but they are not a game changer and won't make up for a lack of money in the recruit's pocket. They are good enough to get us in the game but the $$ will push kids elsewhere unless we pony up.
Every decent program has facilities that are "good enough", every decent program gets TV exposure, every decent program plays in a decent conference against big-name opponents, every decent program can point to players in the NFL, etc. etc. - $$ is now the main differentiating factor - and we need more than we have.
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Sure, they have that many more alumni but for many of them I don’t think they have that many more that care. A lot of schools only draw in the 40-50k range for home games, and a lot of that is from current students. For instance, Washington State - a gigantic public school - has a home stadium that seats about 1k more than Groves. Hell, even with how bad things have been we still draw more for bball than a ton of places.
 
TheAbster said:
I've met Dave several times at fundraisers. Trust me.... this is eating him up!!!! There is no one wanting to fix this shit pile of a season more than Clawson. We have to give him time to adjust.
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Agreed. And it has to be a strategic approach outside of the gameday plan.
 
liveanddiedeac said:
There used to be some concern about leveling the playing field, look at the implementation of the 85 scholly limit. I've read stories where when they weren't limited, programs like Alabama would offer guys they never had any intention of playing in games, but just to keep guys they felt might be good players elsewhere from going to those other schools. Now, any semblance of leveling the playing field is gone. The elite programs will continue to be elite, unless they just don't embrace the NIL and transfer portal like Dabo is doing. That will change is Clemson keeps underachieving or they will find a coach who does embrace the portal. Programs like Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, Michigan, etc. will continue to pull in the best recruits, but now have the ability to go out and get great players from other schools to fill gaps when those 4 and 5 stars don't work out or get injured. Florida State feel off because their recruiting fell off for multiple years, now if a program like like has a bad recruiting year, just go out and bring in abunch of proven players through the portal and pay them.
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And apparently there is no 85 scholly limit if schools can get NIL deals for walk-ons big enough so they can pay their own way.

There was a fear that paying athletes would lead to further imbalance for schools like Wake, but what's happened is an even more imbalanced system emerged from the lack of leadership.
 
TheAbster said:
I've met Dave several times at fundraisers. Trust me.... this is eating him up!!!! There is no one wanting to fix this shit pile of a season more than Clawson. We have to give him time to adjust.
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He's said this as much before in that he's losing sleep over what has become of the season.

He's candid in that "he didn't see this coming."
 
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