7-1, won 5 straight, on track for 10-2 in the regular season.
Bowls and playoffs: 1-2
2021Sun BowlL 21-24
2022LA BowlL 6-29
Wake Forest
2025Duke's Mayo BowlW 43-29
Sat Nov 7, 3:30 pm ET 
· Merrimack is 4-5 · Wake Forest’s chance to win: 100% (the site’s model)
USA TodayFrom Eli Drinkwitz to Jake Dickert, analyzing five Florida State coaching candidatesMon Nov 2
247SportsWake Forest Football coach Jake Dickert press conference Q&AMon Nov 2
weareiowa.comFlorida State's SEARCH to Replace Mike Norvell Should Begin w/Wake Forest's Jake Dickert--Nebraska..Sun Nov 1
Locked OnWhy Jake Dickert Checks Important Boxes | Recruiting | Beating UF & MiamiTue Nov 3Locked OnFlorida State Must spend to Win – Noles' Coaching Search, Manny Diaz, Jake Dickert DebatedMon Nov 2Does submitting your 1st quarter grades after you submitted your ED application help the decision?
Wake Forest is the 2nd best team in the ACC. HC and Offensive Coordinator are stars! Watch
Hire the Wake Forest coach …what he has done there is amazing
Fan mood · last 3 weeks · more upbeat than 3 in 4 FBS fan bases
100%Percent: Wake Forest’s chance to win, from the site’s model. Records are through today. Networks as announced; the rest are set closer to kickoff.
Where Wake Forest stood among 138 FBS programs by stature after each game (1st is the highest; the CFB Zeitgeist ledger).
ESPN
CBS Sports247Sports247SportsEach week as this page showed it at the time. Weeks marked rebuilt came before this page existed: they were built afterward from only what was known by the end of that week.
Watch the biggest plays from Wake Forest’s games, ranked by how much each moved the chance to win.
This winter
Our poach model, on his record so far, the win chances for every game he has left, his program, his pay and his background. Ranked against the 132 FBS head coaches this season. The zone words describe the market’s interest; none of them says he is leaving.
The biggest factors in his profile, each against the typical FBS head coach today. The games he has left are priced into the number, not listed here.
Tested on every FBS head coach from 2012 through 2025, each season scored by a model fit only on the seasons before it. From three games on, given one coach who left for a head-coaching job elsewhere or an NFL coordinator job and one who stayed, it ranked the one who left ahead 79 to 82% of the time; in a season’s first two games, 78%. Its average chance came within a point of the share who actually left. It counts a move a coach makes while he still holds the job; when his school ends it, that doesn’t count, even if another school then hires him.
Jake Dickert is like when I play a dynasty game in NCAA on easy difficulty to make A G6 national champsWake Forest fan
Dickert playing 4D chess going conservative so he can play Dave again next yearWake Forest fan
think dickert makes the PA intern run up the stairs for penalties too?Wake Forest fan
Same. My cardiologist hates DickertWake Forest fan
Gotta say, loving the fight in this team. Dickert is getting me excited to hopefully aim for something other than a minor bowl in the futureWake Forest fan
Sat Nov 7: Merrimack
61st of 104 FBS head coaches · from several outlets and r/CFB
From Eli Drinkwitz to Jake Dickert, analyzing five Florida State coaching candidates
USA Today Nov 2 · one outlet
The headlines for each topic are on the News tab.
from many outlets and r/CFB
Wake Forest aims for strong follow-up to a 9-win debut season under Jake Dickert
AP News +5 Aug 19 · several outlets
The headlines for each topic are on the News tab.
Stories we tracked, by school.
Wake ForestDozens of stories2025 to nowMost about: press conference and quotes, game preview, profile and feature.
Sports Illustrated +1Jake Dickert on Wake Forest’s New QB, ACC Depth & Building a WinnerAug 24
Greensboro News and Record +1Jake Dickert talks about Gio Lopez' improvement so far - Winston-Salem JournalSep 15Greensboro News and Record +1Watch Jake Dickert answer questions at his weekly news conferenceSep 29CBS SportsMaryland coaching candidates: Jake Dickert, Billy Napier among options to replace Mike LocksleyOct 21
Washington StateA few stories2021 to 2024Most about: press conference and quotes, linked to another job, win.
Could another school hire him? What has he said?
Stories are headlines grouped by what they are about, counted through Nov 4.
Pick a job to see its years on their own.
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
2-2 against his rivals at Washington State. Nobody he faced three or more times there has a winning record against him.
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
How he does in the games that matter most — rivalry record, performance broken out by real opponent tier, one-score games, and his toughest historical matchup.
2-2 against his rivals. Nobody he faced three or more times has a winning record against him.
Tags describe each game; they aren’t scores. The weighting that picks these games is still being tested.
ATS is his record against the spread: did his team beat the closing betting line, winning by more than it or losing by less? Lines start in 2013; a dash means fewer than 6 of those games had one. One-score games carry no spread record: a big favorite that wins a close game has almost always failed to cover, so that number would say nothing about the coach.
Called about what the situation called for.
832 run and pass snaps at Wake Forest, 2025–2025, his own games, one row per offensive coordinator. Each cell is how much more often he passed than the rest of FBS did in the same situation (field zone, down, distance, score, quarter, same season), in percentage points.
Where each stint’s offense sat between run-first and pass-first, and how far it moved from one season to the next, against the FBS-wide average of 41% pass. The band is that stint’s real season-to-season range, not a fixed-width box.
Season-to-season pass-rate range for all 449 FBS coaching stints with at least three covered seasons, 2004–2025.
Six numbers on how he actually stocks a roster, from signing day to draft day.
His one ranked Wake Forest class of his own finished #39 nationally.
Washington StateWake ForestAcross every program: 4 ranked classes of his own, averaging #56 nationally.
His class — he had the full signing cycleTransition — he was hired mid-cycle
Rank is each signing class’s national recruiting rank (#1 is best). Only a class he had a full signing cycle to build counts as his; inherited and mid-transition classes still show here, faded, but stay out of the average.
Washington State→Wake Forest2025Players who transferred from his old program to his new one through the portal in the same year he made the move. Name-matching across data sources misses some, so every count is a floor, not an exact number.
of his 2026 roster arrived on his watch — 91 of 116 players. The other 25 are holdovers from before he was hired.
Of his own players on this roster, 30% came through the transfer portal; the rest are non-portal arrivals (high-school signees, JUCO transfers, walk-ons).
Everyone he has brought in, 2025–2026Counting players who have since left: 38% of the 120 arrivals we can classify came through the portal.
“His own” means the player arrived while he was head coach; “inherited” means a predecessor brought him in.
Offensive linemen on his Washington State rosters have averaged within a few pounds of the FBS average (2022–2024). In the three seasons before he arrived, Washington State’s line averaged within a few pounds of the FBS average.
Average listed weight of every offensive lineman on each season’s roster, holdovers included, against every FBS roster that season (2010 on; a program needs 3+ seasons under him to appear). Weights are the ones programs publish, and programs list differently. This describes size only — not scheme, and not quality.
is his biggest recruiting state: 9 of 53 signees (17%) across his 2025–2026 tenure, drawn from 18 states in all. Next: NC (8).
45% of his signees come from GA and its 5 border states (NC 8, FL 2, SC 2, TN 2, AL 1).
Off this map: 3 signees to the west (CA 2, OR).
The map counts signed recruits across his tenure; the distance figures cover his current roster, transfers and walk-ons included. Two different groups, kept separate on purpose.
players drafted into the NFL off his teams here. He brought in 1 of them himself; 1 arrived under Dave Clawson.
| Year | Pick | Player | Pos | NFL team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | R5.31 | Karon Prunty | Cornerback |  New England Patriots | |
| 2026 | R6.17 | Demond Claiborne | Running Back |  Minnesota Vikings | recruited under Dave Clawson |
A pick counts toward his tenure when the player’s final college season was one he coached, a checkable rule rather than a claim about who developed the player. A blank note means the player is on a verified roster and arrived on his watch. “Estimated” means no roster record, so the final season is assumed to be the year before the draft.
Headlines, grouped by what they are about. Each is the outlet’s own.
Press conference and quotes
Press conference and quotes
Greensboro News and Record +1Jake Dickert talks about Gio Lopez' improvement so far - Winston-Salem JournalSep 15Greensboro News and Record +1Watch Jake Dickert answer questions at his weekly news conferenceSep 29
On3Breaking down Jake Dickert quotes from MondayAug 3247SportsWake Forest head coach Jake Dickert talks day 9 of fall camp and previews first scrimmageAug 13On3Breaking down what Jake Dickert said about Saturday’s scrimmageAug 17Game preview
Yahoo SportsWake Forest vs Akron Preview; Season 2 of the Jake Dickert EraSep 2247SportsWake Forest Football coach Jake Dickert recaps win over Akron, previews contest at PurdueSep 7On3Jake Dickert not satisfied with season openerSep 7247SportsWake Forest Football coach Jake Dickert previews Big Four matchup against NC StateOct 5Profile and feature
North Carolina Sports NetworkDetailed 2026 Wake Forest Football Snapshot: Dickert Seeks Sustained SuccessAug 20CBS SportsCollege football Year 2 coaching grades: Bill Belichick earns 'B,' Jake Dickert gets 'A+'Oct 29Linked to another job
Loss
Quarterback and depth chart
Sports Illustrated +1Jake Dickert on Wake Forest’s New QB, ACC Depth & Building a WinnerAug 24ESPNWake Forest HC Jake Dickert on being ranked No. 14, QB Gio Lopez & moreOct 30I don’t worry about that, I don’t think about that
Everyone besides the people who won’t make the medical 105 are out here practicing
Let’s make sure they’re playing fast, confident, relentless
Hired into programs rated 26 to 27 (National Program III tier). Rough match, not calibrated yet — ranked on what the job inherited alone. Coaches hired into this same job aren’t used as comps.
The arc of his career is on Now.
Steady no large move in either direction on our stature ladder
Followed Dave Clawson (2014–2024).
| Season | 2025 | 2026 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||
| Record | 9-4 | 7-1 | |
| Postseason | W bowl | — | |
| Coordinators | |||
| OC | Rob Ezell | Rob Ezell | |
| DC | Scottie Hazelton | Scottie Hazelton | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||
| Offense | 74 | 99 | |
| Defense | 86 | 82 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||
| 1st-down pass% | 39.5 | 49.7 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 33.0 | 35.2 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 29.3 | 34.8 | |
Outperforms his recruiting talent, on both sides of the ball.
Typical size for position, once adjusted for position mix.
Recruits younger transfers than most — more of a development bet.
AI Narratives — “Wake Forest's Inconsistent Finish” and 6 more on the team page.
9th-best Washington State tenure of 21 by the numbers.
Followed Nick Rolovich (2020–2021) · succeeded by Jimmy Rogers (2025).
| Season | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Record & result | |||||
| Record | 3-3 | 7-6 | 5-7 | 8-4 | |
| Postseason | L bowl | L bowl | — | — | |
| Coordinators | |||||
| OC | Craig Stutzmann / Brian Smith | Eric Morris | Ben Arbuckle | Ben Arbuckle | |
| DC | Jake Dickert | Brian Ward | Jeff Schmedding | Jeff Schmedding | |
| Outcome — opponent-adjusted efficiency percentile | |||||
| Offense | 56 | 26 | 42 | 86 | |
| Defense | 60 | 36 | 67 | 14 | |
| Tendencies — play-by-play, neutral script | |||||
| 1st-down pass% | 52.0 | 67.3 | 66.8 | 43.4 | |
| Red-zone pass% | 49.0 | 61.8 | 56.2 | 39.2 | |
| 4th-down go%opp. territory | 50.0 | 45.9 | 37.1 | 50.0 | |
Performs about as expected for his recruiting talent, on both sides of the ball.
A typical amount of portal roster-building.
Brings in smaller-than-position-typical players than most.
Recruits older, more experienced transfers than most.
7 NFL Draft picks: Abraham Lucas (2022), Jaylen Watson (2022), Daiyan Henley (2023), Jaden Hicks (2024), Brennan Jackson (2024), Chau Smith-Wade (2024), Kyle Williams (2025)
Every angle here comes back inconclusive — not enough separation from zero to call it either way.
-0.8 pts at Washington State · #731 of 1290 · middle halfModel fit as of 2026-09-04.
Defensive coordinator across 2 programs, 2 stints, before and after wearing the head-coach hat — every season measured on the same axis, whether he personally ran the unit or someone else did.
How to read this. Coordinator seasons come from our coordinator career records; head-coaching-era seasons are the same unit's FBS-relative percentile for those years, regardless of who coached it, read directly from the staff assignments record. A role change (a “hinge”) is a fact, never a performance verdict — only the season-by-season data itself is colored by outcome.
