Wake Forest football - yes Wake! 7-0. Interesting article on recruiting/rankings & re-engineering 🏈

[underpants]

Couldn’t fit the whole thing on the subject line

Dave Clawson has created college football version's of Moneyball at Wake Forest

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/32542085/dave-clawson-created-college-football-version-moneyball-wake-forest

At this point, Wake was ranked 16th, four spots lower than any other undefeated Power 5 school. The Demon Deacons led the ACC's Atlantic Division, but few pundits thought they'd stay there for long. Then there were the advanced metrics. The algorithms were downright dismissive of Wake Forest. The way Clawson sees it, the whole system is too narrow-minded.

"The formulas out there, they always downgrade us," Clawson said. "I don't think it's fair to our players that what we do is discounted, because of some recruiting rankings that came out six years ago that locks them in a certain way. Once you're a three-star, you're always a three-star."

Wake's offensive coordinator, Warren Ruggiero, compared Clawson's approach to Steve Jobs': "You can't look at the competition and say you're going to do it better. You have to look at the competition and say you're going to do it differently."

In Clawson's early years, Wake's offensive approach was usually to chew up as much clock as possible in hopes of winning a low-scoring game, which they did often: 6-3 (in double overtime) against Virginia Tech in 2014, 3-0 vs. BC in 2014 and 7-3 vs. Tulane in 2016. But as the talent developed, Clawson and Ruggiero adopted a new approach, a sort of Frankenstein's monster version of the triple option that utilizes a delay at the mesh point between the QB and running back that nearly affords a fan enough time to get off the couch and grab a beer before Hartman decides whether to pull the ball or hand it off. The scheme has produced increasingly astounding results, including a 70-point outburst against Army in Week 8 that came despite the Deacons holding the ball for just over 17 minutes. College football is often described as a "copycat" sport, but Wake's offense is a singularity.

[SCantiGOP]

1. About 10 years ago

Wake had the smallest enrollment of any Division 1 school, but since then a lot of small schools have moved into D1. But Wake is probably still the smallest enrollment of any Power 5 conference school.
Congrats to them, but they would have several losses already if they played in the SEC or Big 10.

[underpants]

3. Could very well be right. First school that came to mind was TCU

TCU 10,000
Wake 7,600

[AZProgressive]

5. I give credit to Wake Forest

ACC is tougher than people think but the Big Ten East and SEC West are the 2 toughest conferences in college football.

[Marcuse]

2. Their offense sounds like the old "freeze option".

[underpants]

4. 👍 to you

I wasn’t aware of the freeze option. Looks like Navy, Ga. Tech, Florida State, and Syracuse (McNabb era) used it - sprinkled it in. Watching the Wake game now. Wow that’s quite a pause they take.

[Marcuse]

7. If you live long enough nothing is new.

[AZProgressive]

6. They blew a huge lead to North Carolina

This was a tough rivalry game for them on the road and Sam Howell is a talented quarterback.

Normally I root for undefeated Power 5 teams to lose but not this one.