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Clawson: “If you took away the name Wake Forest, we’d be a Preseason Top 10 team”

Until we show that we can even compete with clemson any top 10 talk needs to be shuttered. We are a top 20-25 team which is awesome, but even in our best and their worst year, we were far from competing with them.
 
deacfan123 said:
Until we show that we can even compete with clemson any top 10 talk needs to be shuttered. We are a top 20-25 team which is awesome, but even in our best and their worst year, we were far from competing with them.
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True. Which is why that Clemson game is easily the biggest September game in the history of the program.
 
There's no way we'll be voted behind FSU in the rankings. 0% chance. The people who vote in these polls are prisoners of the moment, and there's absolutely no way a team coming off a 11-win division-winning season will be behind a team that was sub-.500 the year before
 
wsc8521s said:
There's no way we'll be voted behind FSU in the rankings. 0% chance. The people who vote in these polls are prisoners of the moment, and there's absolutely no way a team coming off a 11-win division-winning season will be behind a team that was sub-.500 the year before
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Well a team coming off an ACC CHAMPIONSHIP in 2006 was voted the following season 3 spots below a team that finished 6-6 and that team was beaten 30-0 at home to the eventual champ, but okay... Whatever you say.
 
It probably won’t happen, but I’d say there’s a way
 
cheeseheads12 said:
Well a team coming off an ACC CHAMPIONSHIP in 2006 was voted the following season 3 spots below a team that finished 6-6 and that team was beaten 30-0 at home to the eventual champ, but okay... Whatever you say.
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Not even close to the same thing given the state of FSU's program then vs. now. There was every reason to believe 2006 was an outlier based on the decade and a half that had preceded it, including an ACC title for FSU in 2005, as opposed to a 3-6 season for FSU in 2020.

Not to mention that we're way more established now than we were then. Or that we were ranked in the Top 10 at our height last year. Or that we've featured in basically everyone's top 15 look-ahead rankings for 2022. Or that FSU lost to a goddamned FCS team last season.

Don't worry yourself dude, we will be third at worst in the ACC preseason poll and comfortably inside the Top 20 in the preseason rankings
 
I understand it, but sometimes there is more of a LOWF attitude among the fanbase than there is in the college football media. Clawson has built a reputation for WF Football among those in the know in college football. WF still has a long way to go, but currently, college football people understand that WF is a solid program that has earned some respect. That said, one bad season, and WF would be quickly dismissed (like NW, who often jumps between college football media darling to an afterthought), but right now, WF has built enough cache, for next season, to be ranked, and picked in the top half of the ACC best football division. That's not massive respect, but its more than WF has ever had.
 
Jim Phillips and whatever counts as ACC media staff need to go all in promoting the ACC Atlantic as one of the strongest divisions in college football. It was 5th in Sagarin, ahead of the SEC West. Clemson and Wake won their bowl games. Every starting QB is coming back. Clemson, State, and Wake should be ranked top 20. Clemson-Wake is Sept 24 and State-Clemson is Oct 1, so the early season buzz should pay off. With Wake playing FSU on Oct 1 by Oct 2, there should be one firm favorite in the Atlantic in the Top 10 or Wake and State are on a collision course for the Nov 5 matchup.
 
PhDeac said:
Jim Phillips and whatever counts as ACC media staff need to go all in promoting the ACC Atlantic as one of the strongest divisions in college football. It was 5th in Sagarin, ahead of the SEC West. Clemson and Wake won their bowl games. Every starting QB is coming back. Clemson, State, and Wake should be ranked top 20. Clemson-Wake is Sept 24 and State-Clemson is Oct 1, so the early season buzz should pay off. With Wake playing FSU on Oct 1 by Oct 2, there should be one firm favorite in the Atlantic in the Top 10 or Wake and State are on a collision course for the Nov 5 matchup.
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Agree. Clawson bangs the Atlantic Division drum often.
 
haven't really heard much out of the new commissioner other than he wants to move the ACC office out of Greensboro. wonder if he will unveil some 5-10 year strategic plan at any point. otherwise the ACC will continue to get dogged in the media in football and its flagship sport (when we're guaranteed a team in the finals).
 
Pilchard said:
I understand it, but sometimes there is more of a LOWF attitude among the fanbase than there is in the college football media. Clawson has built a reputation for WF Football among those in the know in college football. WF still has a long way to go, but currently, college football people understand that WF is a solid program that has earned some respect. That said, one bad season, and WF would be quickly dismissed (like NW, who often jumps between college football media darling to an afterthought), but right now, WF has built enough cache, for next season, to be ranked, and picked in the top half of the ACC best football division. That's not massive respect, but its more than WF has ever had.
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That’s all true, but at the same time you have to realize it’s the coach himself saying “If our name wasn’t Wake Forest…” And he probably has the best gauge on how the media regards us.
 
PhDeac said:
Jim Phillips and whatever counts as ACC media staff need to go all in promoting the ACC Atlantic as one of the strongest divisions in college football. It was 5th in Sagarin, ahead of the SEC West. Clemson and Wake won their bowl games. Every starting QB is coming back. Clemson, State, and Wake should be ranked top 20. Clemson-Wake is Sept 24 and State-Clemson is Oct 1, so the early season buzz should pay off. With Wake playing FSU on Oct 1 by Oct 2, there should be one firm favorite in the Atlantic in the Top 10 or Wake and State are on a collision course for the Nov 5 matchup.
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I don't know who else returns for UL, but if Malik runs and throws to his capabilities, they will score a lot of points. Their last 3 conference games:

WF
@Clemson
NCSU
 
Yeah. Louisville will probably stumble through the early schedule like usual but have high potential to play spoiler at the end of the season before getting beat up by UK.
 
DeacDaddy said:
That’s all true, but at the same time you have to realize it’s the coach himself saying “If our name wasn’t Wake Forest…” And he probably has the best gauge on how the media regards us.
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Maybe, I just haven't really seen evidence as of yet that we're being disrespected. And a long way to go before the rankings Claw is talking about come out.

I believe the main objective is to help build a narrative to respect what we did last year, look at what we have coming back and acknowledge that we should be a highly-ranked team. Clawson understands how important starting as high in the rankings as possible is so you have less ground to make up if we do indeed have a really special season
 
DownEastDeac said:
Pat Forde of Sports Illustrated has us preseason #8.
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Cool. But as said earlier, if we want to change the national narrative of Wake football, the Clemson game this September is when it has to happen. Doesn't mean we absolutely must win but a loss needs to be a TD or less. We cannot get man-handled like we did last year in Death Valley and complain about not being a top 10 team.
 
A close loss maybe changes the narrative but we need to win to have any claim of competing for the Atlantic title every year. State beat Clemson at home last year. Wake can too.
 
Beat Clemson in September and we’re legit playoff contenders in the eyes of the national media. Biggest home game since BC in ‘06.
 
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