The Wake Forest Demon Deacons had a very special season in 2021. They vaulted past the Clemson Tigers to win the ACC Atlantic Division championship, due to Clemson\u2019s pair of losses to Pittsburgh and North Carolina State. Wake Forest did lose to Clemson, but it didn\u2019t lose to anyone else, so it beat the Tigers by one game in the standings. The Deacs reached the ACC Championship Game before losing to Pittsburgh. It was a better year than anyone in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, had a right to expect. Now coach Dave Clawson gets quarterback Sam Hartman back for one more run at a conference championship. The continuity Wake has at the quarterback spot gives the Deacs a legitimate chance at defending their division title and getting another appearance in the conference championship game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Key Personnel Lost<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Demon Deacons lost offensive guard Zach Tom, who was taken in the fourth round of the NFL draft, plus cornerback Ja\u2019Sir Taylor. Those were two very dependable players for the 2021 team, and the 2022 roster will need to adequately replace them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Important Incoming Freshmen<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Wake Forest has signed two four-star prospects, receiver Wesley Grimes and running back Demond Claiborne, who will try to provide depth on the offensive side of the ball and make sure the program maintains the high standard it has set on offense in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On defense, the Demon Deacons grabbed a few three-star prospects, including defensive lineman Eli Hall, linebacker Derrell Johnson, cornerback Zamari Stevenson, defensive lineman Jalen Swindell, cornerback Andre Hodge, and linebacker Tommy Bebie. Wake Forest is not going to get five-star athletes very often, so accumulating a considerable number of three-star players it can then develop into dependable players is the recruiting philosophy which works for this particular program, given its level of size and its amount of overall resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It will also be interesting to see how incoming transfer defensive lineman Kobie Turner elevates the front four.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Key Position Battles<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Wake Forest is going to be very good on offense once again with Hartman returning at quarterback, in charge of a high-powered passing attack guided by elite offensive coordinator Warren Ruggiero. The big need for Wake Forest is the defensive line, which got shoved around at times last season. Wake was bullied by Clemson\u2019s offensive line. The Tigers did not have a very good passing game last year, but because their offensive line dominated Wake Forest\u2019s front four, Clemson was still able to do everything it wanted on offense, something which certainly caught the eye of the Wake Forest coaching staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Identifying the best defensive linemen, particularly on the interior to defend against the run, will be the main thing to watch when the Wake Forest staff sorts out its roster and depth chart before Week 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biggest Offseason Goal(s)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Defensive line toughness is the name of the game. Wake Forest had so many strengths in 2021, but the weak defensive line was vulnerable to Clemson\u2019s power and Pittsburgh\u2019s passing attack in late-season battles. Wake\u2019s defense doesn\u2019t need to be spectacular, but it does need to be somewhat more resilient if the Deacs are going to defend their division title and have a 2022 season which is similarly successful compared to 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Wake Forest Demon Deacons had a very special season in 2021. They vaulted past the Clemson Tigers to win…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":7629,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ncaaf"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23020"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23032,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23020\/revisions\/23032"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}