Wake Forest Vs Stanford, October 26th, 2024, Stanford Stadium, CA. Photo Credit: Wake Forest Athletics
Owls football is set to take the field for the first time under first-year coach Jerry Mack against a retooled Wake Forest on Friday at Allegacy Federal Credit Union Stadium.
Like the Owls, the Demon Deacons will be debuting a new head coach on Friday night. Longtime coach Dave Clawson stepped down at the conclusion of last year’s disappointing 4-8 campaign, making way for Jake Dickert.
Dickert spent the last four seasons at Washington State, leading the Cougars to a 23-20 record over the course of his tenure, including an 8-4 season and a trip to the Holiday Bowl in 2024.
According to ESPN’s Pete Thamel’s report on Sunday, Wake is expected to start redshirt-senior Robby Ashford at quarterback on Friday.
Ashford began his college career at Oregon where he didn’t see the field, but started 11 games between 2022-24 at Auburn and South Carolina.
Throughout his career, the fifth-year quarterback has consistently hurt opposing defenses with his legs, tallying 1,154 rushing yards and 14 rushing touchdowns, including a career-high of 133 yards against Akron last season.
“You look at [Ashford’s] resume and obviously he’s played at two premier programs at Auburn and at South Carolina,” Mack said. “But the speed and athleticism is real. He’s a Power Four talent both as a quarterback and as an athlete — we got our work cut out for us.”
Senior running back Demond Claiborne was a standout in the Demon Deacon offense last season, rushing for 1,049 yards and 11 touchdowns while averaging an impressive 4.6 yards per carry.
Mack wasn’t hesitant to compliment Claiborne’s ability as a ball-carrier, but also praised his standout blocking ability.
“[Claiborne is] an NFL running back,” Mack said. “He’s extremely hard to tackle, he’s got great balance and body control. Just looking at him and all the things he can do with the ball in his hands — I think one of the more underrated things that he does is block, pass protect, and that’s going go a long way in his career — we got our work cut out for us to try to tackle him and the quarterback.”
Defensively, Wake struggled mightily in 2024, allowing opponents 32.5 points per game — good for 114th in the country.
The Demon Deacons were forced to replace one 2024’s leading tacklers, Branson Combs, but returning are key safety Nick Anderson and veteran linebackers Quincy Bryant and Dylan Hazen, who are all expected to be major contributors on their side of the ball.
The Owls sit as 18-point underdogs as of Monday heading into Friday night according to most oddsmakers in what will be the program’s second contest against a power-conference team, and first since 2021’s 45-17 loss to Georgia Tech.
“We’re just looking at ourselves more than anything else,” Mack said. “There’s some things overall from top to bottom, we have 60-plus new transfers in the building. We want to make sure we play our style, our game. We want to limit the mistakes more than anything else. Penalties, turnovers, missed assignments, we want to make sure we do a great job of eliminating those things.”
