Wake Forest is done resting for the season, and it is time to refocus. After a bye week, the Demon Deacons are 6-1 overall and 4-1 in the conference with five games left in the season. They are home Saturday against the Virginia Cavaliers, who come into Winston-Salem 4-4 overall and 2-3 in conference play.
So how did Wake Forest spend its time off after the win at Cal? A mix of rest, recuperation, and self-evaluation.
The Wake Forest Refocus
“It was huge. It was really huge,” head coach Jake Dickert said on Monday when talking about having the time to get some rest in after seven straight games to open the season. After the Cal game, there were no official practices until this last Thursday. That gave the players time to heal any of the aches, pains, and minor injuries that hampered them. Receiver Carlos Hernandez managed only a few snaps in the Cal game due to a nagging injury, so the time to rehab was particularly big for him. “There’s a ton of guys, especially on the defensive line of scrimmage that were playing with a lot of little things.”
The time off was also spent doing a lot of internal scouting. Dickert said there were meetings with the players about where they need to be going forward in order to maintain the success they have had to this point. “You’re not watching it with a warm, fuzzy feeling,” Dickert said of the game film reviews that went on during the break. “You’ve got to look at it with a real eye, to say, ‘Where can we really improve? Where are our tendencies at?’ I can go into a million different things.”
That evaluation goes beyond the players and to the coaching staff and Dickert himself. “We identified some failed techniques. We’ve got to get the pads back on, especially with our offensive line and defensive line, and we’ve got to do better at it.”
We asked Dickert what a self-evaluation of his work so far this season looked like. He said it included getting feedback from the players.
The result, he said, is to make sure he is the same coach from one day to the next. “At the end of the day, it’s just be ultra consistent,” he said. “I can’t be walking around here like every day is fourth and one. We’ve got to be able to do the things consistently that we did to generate this type of success. I think that starts with me.” He said the daily routines and the way the coaches are delivering their messages to the players are key. “At the end of the day, if you put in more time because you perceive any game as more important, you’re already wrong.”
The Coaching Rumors
To that point, Dickert said he is spending no time on the outside noise involving his name and college football coaching openings.
There have been well-documented differences in the realities of what the spending commitment of the Wake Forest athletic department’s spending commitment is, and what Dickert wants it to be. Couple that with the unforeseen success of this season, and his name comes up as a candidate whenever a coach gets fired elsewhere. These days, it even comes up for coaching jobs that are not open, but might be at some point in the near future.
“It’s not difficult,” Dickert said about staying focused under the circumstances. “Just because of the moment in time that we’re in and the opportunity this is afforded.”
Dickert reminded the media that he was given a contract extension after going 9-4 in year one with a win over Mississippi State in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. In most cases, contract extensions are simply about adding a year at the end of the existing deal and re-factoring buyout terms in both directions. Dickert, however, claimed to be working on a big-picture plan with athletic director John Currie and new school president Dr. Peter Rodriguez.
“They know I want to do it going forward with this team, with these coaches, with these players. They know exactly where I sit on that.” Dickert is going to get calls from other schools, and he is likely to have options when the season is over. But he declared on Monday that he won’t be discussing it every week because, as he put it, this is just the way college football is now for coaches and players alike.
Honoring The Day
Saturday’s game against Virginia falls on Halloween. Dickert said the Deacs will be wearing all-black for the occasion. He half-joked that he tried to get Virginia (whose colors are blue and orange) to wear all orange uniforms for the game, but that it did not work out.
The game is a 3:45 pm kickoff. While that is during daylight hours, the game will spill over into the prime trick-or-treating hours for the younger fans. “Stick it out with us as long as you can,” Dickert pleaded with the fans.
And as for his Halloween costume, Dickert said, “I will wear mine. I’m just going to go as a coach. I’m not very original in that department.”
Main Image: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images