“Glory Days” series: Wake Forest Edition

Uh, all right. Wake Forest has been to seven consecutive bowl games. They have won five of them. Uh, it's a pretty good run for Dave Claussen's group. Is it the best in Wake Forest history? Best run in Wake Forest history?

Connor O'Neill, Deacons Illustrated, is joining us on the Adam Gold show. So we start with the simple and the knuckle dragging. Is this the best Wake Forest has ever been? I think so. Uh, certainly the only real comparison to make here is between 2006 and 2008 and that's only a three-year stretch. Uh, it continues to boggle my mind every time I write it and it's getting to be a couple years in a row now that I've had to write it and keep adjusting. Uh, that the previously longest bowl streak in Wake Forest history was three years.

Uh, they've now more than doubled it. Uh, it was, it was a nice novelty thing when they made it four straight and then it was five straight, then it was six straight and they had doubled it. Now it's seven straight and I, you know, this season is going to test them. Certainly the, the last eight games after they come out of that off week is going to be pretty grueling, but it's certainly a roster that can make a bowl and make it eight straight years and you just keep, keep stacking them and, uh, they're going to continue to hope that they get a season like they did in 21 where they could compete for a conference championship.

But that would be remarkable in the year of the first year of no divisions, but look, anything is, anything is possible. I know you also cover Duke and I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that Duke beats Clemson, uh, in the opener. Just because week one is weird and I think Duke is good. I think Clemson is good too.

I'm not saying Duke's better than Clemson, but I wouldn't be completely, I wouldn't, I would not fall off my chair if the Blue Devils won that game on the opening Monday night of the season. What, what sticks out to you though about what Clossett has done over this seven year stretch and their record is about 500 in league play, which frankly is pretty good for Wake Forest for over a seven year run. What sticks out to you about this program?

The, the longevity and the sustainability of it. Um, it all, it all gets tied into being a developmental program. Like you, you haven't seen them grab top 25 classes, uh, like some people would like them to go out and do. They've stuck to the model that worked to get them to this point and, and they've continued to target those types of recruits that they can come in. You know, they're not, they're not bringing in your 320 pound freshmen offensive lineman who's going to start for three or four years and leave. Uh, they, they continue to get the multi-sport kid that is coming in at 260 and they put them in what they call the incubator and get them to a point where his third, fourth, fifth year in the program, he can play at a really high level. And I think the previous staff, like Jim Grove did a lot of things at Wake Forest that people didn't think was possible for, for Wake won an ACC championship. And that's kind of the one thing that he has over Clausen at this point when you compare resumes, but that staff at the end of their tenure, their recruiting slipped and they tried to grab some kids that they probably shouldn't have been going for. And, uh, that's something, you know, anything can happen in the future, but that's something that Dave Clausen and the staff haven't started doing yet. Uh, it's, they grab a couple, four stars a class, but it's mostly three stars that they can develop and hang on to. And that's pretty impressive.

Connor O'Neill Deacons Illustrated also Devils Illustrated, same place. Uh, you can, uh, are you on threads yet? Not on threads. I'm, I'm on Twitter until it burns to the ground.

I mean, it's inevitable. I don't like what happened to my tweet deck. I don't know what they did.

They just, they, I can't, it took me like 20 minutes to send you a DM the other day. Um, let me, uh, first of all, 27 and 28 is the record in ACC play in the last seven years. And people say, oh, that's only 500. Yeah. It's Wake Forest.

I get it. Uh, that's still a pretty good, uh, a pretty good run. What stands out to me about them over the, this run has been the level of athleticism. I mean, they almost, almost only seem to have like, oh my gosh, that's an elite wide receiver. I can see him in the NFL. Uh, or it's, it's a defensive lineman that is, that is pushing for a linebacker. They always seem to have athletes.

And I think it's, it's just remarkable to me that they have guys that look the part, um, all the time. Let me, let me just throw one, uh, one more thing at you. And this is based on news of the day with, with what's going on at Northwestern. Dave Klassen's name has obviously come up. So, I mean, I don't, I can't imagine anything would happen now with, with Klassen.

I think he would just slam the phone down because of the timing of it all. But could you see Wake Forest losing a coach to Northwestern? So it's interesting because for the last, definitely the last about 18 months, um, since the end of the 21 season and Dave, uh, before I think it was before they played that last game of the regular season of BC, they announced a contract extension for him. And, uh, since then, I've pretty much said there are two jobs in college football that I would see Dave Klassen leaving Wake Forest for without, you know, getting the SEC deal of $50 million or whatever it would be that crazy monopoly money type contract. And those two schools have been Notre Dame and Northwestern. And so Northwestern, I think does fit the profile of kind of what I had in mind, like that private academic driven school, uh, could, could kind of punch up, uh, if you will, and could recruit to a certain model that is similar to what he's done, not only at Wake, but at Bowling Green, at Richmond, at Fordham, everywhere else he's been where, where this becomes a non-SEC order to me is Northwestern has to clear so many financial hurdles there. Now to get a quality coach in there, you're going to have to overpay by, by a considerable amount. That's hard to do when you're trying to build an $800 million stadium, uh, by the way. So I guess those planes get put on hold the part that really makes it a non-SEC order. I'll get to the punchline here in a minute.

Uh, Pat Fitzgerald and Dave Klassen have the same manager, not manager, agent, agent, uh, it's Brian Harlan, a Chicago based agent. I cannot see Macy's one day sales starts tomorrow with deals of the day on the perfect wardrobe updates and home finds like 40 to 60% off summer styles. She'll love up to 40% off her favorite shoes, handbags, and wallets, and 35 to 70% off bedding and bath featuring hotel collection and more. Plus get contact free curbside pickup or pickup in store today.

Details at macy's.com slash pickup savings off sale and clearance prices exclusions apply. Northwestern going to war with Brian Harlan about Pat Fitzgerald's contract and how they fired him. And then they turn around and say, Oh, by the way, we want to hire one of your other guys. Right.

Well, strange, uh, straight, strange things. Yeah. To me that, that just cancels any, any rumors out. By the way, Mike Elko has another good year. He's, uh, he's also, uh, in that mix. I look, I hope neither guy goes cause they're both phenomenal coaches.

I, before I let you go, I got to ask you about this. So I keep seeing all these, uh, top pitchers across college baseball, transferring to wake forest to pitch in really almost a goofy ballpark. It shouldn't produce good pitchers, but wake forest has this pitching lab.

That is the rage. Uh, what makes it so unique and why haven't like every other school copied it already? There are a few other pitching labs with college baseball programs.

What wake has that nobody else does is the infrastructure around it with the medical side. Uh, dr. Kristin Nicholson is, is the name behind the, the kind of, it's not, she, she's not teaching them how to throw breaking balls and stuff like that. And I think that's Mike, Mike, Mike McFerrin is the pitching lab coordinator and Corey Mascara is the pitching coach, but Kristin is, is breaking down kind of the evolutionary things in an arm as they throw that. That's a huge part of it. That kind of goes unreported, um, just in, in terms of, Oh, they've got the pitching lab. They can develop you.

Um, that that's the selling point that kind of goes, uh, unnoticed when, when just we're talking about it. I mean, there, how many guys got drafted? There were nine in the first 10 rounds.

I think you had three or four the next day. It's like half the roster got drafted. Yeah.

That bill was always going to come do right. It was a extremely talented team and it was an older team. Uh, there weren't a bunch of freshmen and sophomores in there. Uh, they had one freshman in the lineup and that's their shortstop. Uh, keep an eye on him down the road, but you know, it was a, it was an experienced roster and the, the bill was going to come do. And this month was that time. Yeah.

That's why the portal is there. Uh, Connor O'Neill, I appreciate your time. He's not, uh, he's not on threads, but Hey, that's okay.

Uh, at Connor O'Neill underscore D I uh, thank you. My friend get on threads. I'm there.

I don't know. There's not a whole lot going on there yet, but who knows just be ahead of the game. I prefer to be behind the game. Come on.

You're you're like a catcher. I was so far behind the game on Facebook. Uh, Twitter, I was kind of there as it was getting going, but yeah, I'll join when I know that Twitter is no longer an option. Thanks, man. I appreciate your time. Thanks.