Anonymous ACC coach believes Wake Forest has a 'wide-open audition at every position'

The Wake Forest Demon Deacons are going to have a new coach for the first time in 11 seasons, as Jake Dickert is taking over for Dave Clawson. Of course, with the change comes a complete roster flip that’s going to make for a completely new look in Winston-Salem.

Ahead of the season, several ACC coaches spoke to Athlon anonymously about Wake Forest. There, one emphasized just how many question marks there are on the Demon Deacons roster. In fact, every position appears to be an open battle for playing time.

“They have a couple good players,” an ACC coach said. “But from what we know, it’s a totally wide-open audition at every position.”

Another ACC coach explained that it would be difficult to make any predictions about Wake Forest going into 2025. The roster flip is just too big to come to conclusions until you see them on the field this Fall. That roster flip is massive, too. Wake Forest has the 66th-ranked transfer class in the 2025 cycle, according to the On3 College Football Team Transfer Portal Rankings. That includes 26 players who have left the program and another 33 who are entering it.

Another ACC coach noted that there are comparisons to be made to last season’s Indiana team that went to the College Football Playoff. However, they don’t think it’s a one-for-one comparison.

“A lot of people want to compare this to what [Curt] Cignetti did coming into Indiana because they brought seven or eight guys from Washington State, but it’s a little bit different at Wake. Indiana put way more into NIL up front. Wake isn’t a huge player right now. The good news is their roster isn’t as bad as that IU team.”

Jake Dickert has proven he can win in difficult situations. At Washington State, he inherited a team during the pandemic that was forced to fire its coach for not complying with the state’s vaccine mandate. He’d then see them through the Pac-12 being largely dissolved. Now, in a more stable but tough situation with Wake Forest, the hope is he can get the Demon Deacons competitive quickly amid the rebuild.

“Dickert made a ton of sense on paper,” an ACC coach said. “Because he succeeded under the strain of what WSU went through, and at Wake you have to do more with less than the bigger ACC programs.”

Wake Forest begins its season on August 29th against Kennesaw State. They’ll then kick off ACC play on September 11th against NC State.