“If it’s based on merits and investment, we’ll be in great shape,”
Wake Forest coach Dave Clawson told reporters. “Name another football program that has invested more in the last four or five years than we have. We’ve spent more than $100 million in football facilities in the last four or five years. If you take out the COVID season — which not everybody played the same number of games nor had the same opportunity to play — we have the second-most wins in the ACC the last five seasons. If it’s based on the product, the investment level and the commitment to football, we should be in great shape.
“Now I’m not the person in charge of saying those are the qualifications. But as an institution, we can only control our investment level and our commitment level. You’d have a really hard time saying right now that Wake Forest isn’t all-in on football. The results speak for themselves. When national media members come and visit our facilities, they’re in shock. I think we’re competitive with anybody in the league. We’ve invested. Our university president, Susan Wente, our athletic director John Currie and our board of trustees, we’re all in. Our success, to me, is not an accident.”
Wake Forest’s market reach as the smallest Power 5 school in the country can’t be ignored, though, which is why the Demon Deacons, like many others here Wednesday, were seemingly left to verbally justify the validation of a conference that has won the second-most national titles and earned the second-most Playoff berths in the CFP era.