Are Wake Forest Demon Deacons finally snapping back to reality?

The Wake Forest Demon Deacons are in some rough shape entering the second half of their 2023 slate. Unfortunately, that shocks virtually no one.

When considering historical standards, there are very few college football teams that deserve as much praise for their recent consistency as the Wake Forest Demon Deacons.

Despite sitting amongst the sorriest Power 5 programs all time, the Deacs haven’t seen a full-season finish with less than eight wins since 2018. On top of that, they haven’t missed out on the postseason since 2015. Those would be respectable stats for any school, but for Wake, they (along with others) are so outstanding that they put Dave Clawson in the conversation for being the program’s greatest head coach ever.

However, after a team spends as much time at the bottom of the barrel as the Demon Deacons have, any stretch of success is seen as strictly temporary, with the collapse back to its gloomy reality being just around the corner. This time around, most would have agreed that said collapse was going to occur this year.

Following an 8-5 showing in 2022, the Wake Forest Demon Deacons lost a ton of headlining talent on both sides of the ball, including Sam Hartman, A.T. Perry, Christian Turner, Quinton Cooley, Blake Whiteheart, Kobie Turner, and Gavin Holmes.

When mixing that lengthy list of departures with the rise of fellow ACC powers like Florida State and Duke, a blind man could see that the Deacs were at risk of enduring a far-rougher ride in 2023 than those they had prior—and their performance so far has confirmed such fears to be appropriate.

Halfway through their slate, Wake is sitting at 3-3 on the season. What started with relatively unimpressive wins over Elon, Vanderbilt, and Old Dominion quickly turned sour with ugly losses to Georgia Tech, Clemson, and Virginia Tech. The stretch has resulted in the worst record the Demon Deacons have held six games in since 2018, and the only time they started worse than that was when they were 2-4 in 2014—Dave Clawson’s first year in Winston-Salem.

But hold on a second, we were just talking about how the Wake Forest Demon Deacons making the postseason means a lot for its football program. With the Deacs technically being on pace to do so in spite of facing some troubling circumstances, shouldn’t we be celebrating their efforts instead of embracing the idea of their downfall?

Normally I’d say yes, but there is an additional factor that leaves me skeptical, and that is the reason behind this bumpy start being so alarming in the first place.

Wake’s start is more concerning than some might think

While there may not be an exact science behind it, Wake has developed a reputation for starting strong before crashing and burning towards the end of their slate. Last year was a beautiful example of this phenomenon, as they started out 6-1 all just to enter the Gasparilla Bowl at 7-5.

In other words, the first half of the season has typically been where the Deacs experience the bulk of their success, a trend that has undoubtedly been perverted by their three-straight losses.

But hey, maybe this is just a result of how their schedule was chalked up. Couldn’t the early struggles simply be due to an unusually problematic placement of opponents? Perhaps, but that would only be the case if there are no games left on their calendar that are tougher than a visit to 4-2 Clemson, as the Tigers are far and away the strongest team the Deacs have played as of today.

Well, remember what I said before about Florida State and Duke being on the rise? Wake Forest has to face both of them not even seven days apart. On Saturday, Oct. 28, the Demon Deacons will be hosting the currently unbeaten Seminoles (who were able to survive the Tigers on the road). The Thursday after that, they walk into Durham for a date with a one-loss Duke squad that beat them last year.

Speaking of teams the Blue Devils have beaten, they also crushed Clemson in Durham to start their season. I’d have to assume that if they can beat a team that downed Wake, then they can beat Wake itself on the same field.

Just by assuming that the Deacs lose those two games, they’ll be tying the number of losses they had in 2022, and that’s without even including the pair of tricky road trips to Notre Dame and Syracuse they have to end their season.

Heck, even the home games against Pittsburgh (which is this weekend) and NC State are in no way promised victories. The Panthers are the only team left on the schedule that currently holds a losing record, but they just beat up on what was an unbeaten Louisville. Not only that, but the two Techs have shown us that the Deacs clearly have no issue getting bullied by teams with losing records.

As for the Wolfpack, it’s not exactly winning any awards for formidability either, but the Pack is nonetheless a brutal rival that beat Wake by two possessions last year. Oh, and it doesn’t help when such a hated enemy is wedged right between those aforementioned visits to the Blue Devils and Fighting Irish.

So in summary, the Wake Forest Demon Deacons lost a hefty handful of talent, is off to their worst start in years, and have to face a list of foes that are relentless by even Georgia’s standards. That, to me, sounds like a recipe for disaster.

With the Deacs being colossal failures in the history books, most college football fans enjoy seeing them do well—it’s refreshing. However, it’s impossible to deny a truth that is as painfully evident as today’s: At its current rate, Wake Forest football is on the verge of a plummet that will send it barreling back to the horrendous image it’s fought for years to erase.