The 2006 ACC championship and Orange Bowl
Wake Forest wins the ACC and reaches the Orange Bowl — the most improbable major-bowl run of its era
Program outlook
Program outlook
Wake Forest has 5,400 undergraduates and just won nine games in a first-year coach's debut — the most wins any Wake Forest first-year coach has ever produced. The model outlasted the man who built it. That is the whole argument.
Since Jun 14: W 57-3 vs Stanford; W 38-14 at NC State; W 41-7 at California; W 51-7 vs Virginia. 7-1 this season.
Read the full essay — 3 more paragraphs
Wake Forest is the smallest school in the Power conferences by enrollment, and the program has spent twenty years making that fact irrelevant. The 2006 ACC championship and Orange Bowl appearance came from a 5,400-student campus. The quarterback pipeline — Riley Skinner, John Wolford, Sam Hartman — came from a recruiting class that every school the Deacons compete against would have passed on. Dave Clawson's decade of bowls and an 11-3 peak in 2021 proved the model was repeatable. Then Clawson stepped away after 2024 and Winston-Salem braced for the thing that usually follows when a small program loses the coach who made it work.
Jake Dickert, hired from Washington State, went 9-4 in year one and won the Duke's Mayo Bowl 43-29 over Mississippi State — the most wins any Wake Forest first-year coach had ever managed. The program signed Dickert to a long-term extension in December 2025. The bowl MVP was Robby Ashford, who is now out of eligibility, and the 2026 quarterback situation is unresolved. The model is intact. The personnel question is open.
The 2026 question in Winston-Salem is the one Dickert's debut made worth asking: is this the floor of an era, or was year one the high? Wake Forest has answered that question the same way every time it has been asked — by finding a quarterback nobody else wanted and turning him into a system piece that works. The 2006 answer was an ACC title. The 2025 answer was nine wins. The 2026 answer starts at quarterback.
On the field
Patient, development-first football: redshirt early, install the slow-mesh or run-pass option system, and out-execute teams with deeper rosters. Wake Forest recruits the three-star prospect other schools deprioritize and turns the deliberate development timeline into a competitive advantage over four years. Defense is sound by design rather than imposing by personnel. The Demon Deacons do not out-talent anyone — they out-develop, and the model has produced NFL quarterbacks from a private school in Winston-Salem that most recruiting services ignore.
Wake Forest has won 41% of its games since 1908 — 52% at home, 31% on the road.
502-694-31 all-time · 119 seasons · 1908–2026
Home
290-252-19
Away
200-435-12
Neutral
12-7
25%
1900s
27%
1910s
42%
1920s
41%
1930s
59%
1940s
38%
1950s
27%
1960s
31%
1970s
42%
1980s
34%
1990s
50%
2000s
43%
2010s
58%
2020s
The CFP era
13 seasons inside the CFP era, no bids yet — the era the program is still trying to break into.
Trajectory · quality-score line · AP rank dotted · CFP bids marked · coach regimes ribboned
Program quality
AP rank (inverted)
CFP appearance
Swipe left for earlier seasons
Wake Forest’s 2014–2026 record is 83-74.
Jake Dickert
Jake Dickert is in year 2. The methodology is taking shape.
Era Jake Dickert · 2025–presentPrev: Dave Clawson (2014–2024)OC: Rob EzellPrev OC: Warren Ruggiero (2014–2024)DC: Scottie HazeltonPrev DC: Brad Lambert (2022–2024)
2
years · era
Moments in Wake Forest history
- Wake Forest 27, NC State 23Nov 8, 2018
- North Carolina 58, Wake Forest 55Nov 6, 2021
- Clemson 51, Wake Forest 45Sep 24, 2022
What this program never forgets
Most weeks vanish. These didn’t.
2021
The 11-3 peak
A program-best modern season behind the slow-mesh offense and a Top-25 finish
2025
Dickert’s nine-win debut
A new coach goes 9-4 and wins the Duke's Mayo Bowl, proving the model survived Clawson's exit
Moment of the year · 2026
Won 30-27 at Louisville
Week 4 of 2026. Won as a 11.5-point underdog — the result the market didn't see coming. It turned on one snap in Q4 — Carson Hilbert, a 33-point win-probability swing.
2022–2026
Wake Forest has sent 9 players to the NFL Draft since 2022 — none in the first round.
Steady. Reliable mid-tier pipeline.
9
picks · 0 in round 1
#89
Kobie Turner
Defensive Tackle · 2023 · 
Los Angeles Rams · #138/387 final season
Los Angeles Rams · #138/387 final season
#124
Malik Mustapha
Safety · 2024 · 
San Francisco 49ers · #110/538 final season
San Francisco 49ers · #110/538 final season
#140
Zach Tom
Offensive Guard · 2022 · 
Green Bay Packers
Green Bay Packers
#74 all-time · 5 first-round picksthe talent factory →
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Ladder finish
Season standing · 2026 · 7-1 · CFP #16 / AP #14
Season standing · 2026 · 7-1 · CFP #16 / AP #14Wake Forest is ranked 16th (CFP) at 7-1.
Ranked in the AP/Coaches polls, 16-25. National relevance achieved.
Ranked (25-16)
Sub-FBSBuildingBowlRankedContenderPlayoff
Conference
ACC standing · 2026
2nd in the ACC
Wake Forest is 2nd in the ACC at 5-1. 1 team above — that's the direct path to the title game.
| # | Program | Record |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Miami | 6-0 |
| 2 | Wake Forest | 5-1 |
| 3 | Louisville | 4-2 |
| 4 | SMU | 4-2 |
| 5 | Clemson | 3-2 |
| 6 | Duke | 3-2 |
| 7 | Virginia Tech | 3-2 |
| 8 | Pittsburgh | 3-3 |
| 9 | Boston College | 2-3 |
| 10 | NC State | 2-3 |
| 11 | North Carolina | 2-3 |
| 12 | California | 2-4 |
| 13 | Stanford | 2-4 |
| 14 | Syracuse | 2-4 |
| 15 | Virginia | 2-4 |
| 16 | Florida State | 1-4 |
| 17 | Georgia Tech | 1-4 |
Coaching history
Coaching history
- Hired Jake Dickert
- Dave Clawson departs
- Hired Dave Clawson
- Jim Grobe departs
- Hired Jim Grobe
- Jim Caldwell departs
- Hired Jim Caldwell
- Bill Dooley departs
Coordinator lineage
Wake Forest’s offense and defense, by coordinator
FBS-relative efficiency percentile per season (2014–2026), same population as the Coordinator Mirror board. Dashed vertical lines mark a coordinator change.
Offense2014–2026
2014–2024 · Warren Ruggiero2025–2026 · Rob Ezell
Defense2014–2026
2014–2016 · Mike Elko2017–2018 · Jay Sawvel2019–2021 · Lyle Hemphill2022–2024 · Brad Lambert2025–2026 · Scottie Hazelton
Elite (≥70th pct)AveragePoor (≤30th pct)
Gameday customs
Rituals
Three gameday rituals — the ones outsiders never quite catch.
Demon Deacon Mascot
since 1923
more
The Demon Deacon (the costumed top-hat-and-tails figure) is one of the most-distinctive mascots in CFB. Born of a 1923 student-cheer joke about the strict Baptist school's 'Deacons' — the mascot leans into the contradiction. Acrobatic sideline routines became viral in the 2010s.
Old Gold and Black
since 1895
more
Wake's color combination (old gold + black) is the program's defining visual marker — distinct from competitor schools' brighter palettes. The metallic-gold helmet decals reflect light unusually under stadium lighting; the Reggie Williams-era 2006-2008 teams photographed at twilight became the program's iconic imagery.
Tobacco Road (vs NC State / UNC / Duke) — not the ’Brawl of the Wild,’ which is Montana / Montana State’s rivalry name
since 1888
more
Wake Forest is in a three-way in-state Tobacco Road football rivalry with UNC and NC State. Smallest of the three programs by enrollment, frequently underestimated, occasionally winning the round-robin. The 2024 ACC realignment continues to test the rivalry continuity.
Cultural identity
2025 W
2022 W
2021 W
2019 LReddit blowups
r/CFB moments
1.6k
[Postgame Thread] Wake Forest Defeats Army 70-56
637
[Postgame Thread] Wake Forest Defeats Campbell 66-14
All-time top community posts
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