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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 21, 2017

Dave Clawson

Greensboro, North Carolina

DAVE CLAWSON: We're looking forward to hosting Duke this weekend at the final home game at BB&T Stadium, and our final home game for the seniors. I think two of the biggest challenges in coaching is to get your team ready to play after a heartbreaking loss or an emotional win. Of those two challenges you'd always rather deal with the second.

The N.C. State win was a great win for us. N.C. State's an excellent team, and we were able to create some key turnovers, and made enough plays on offense to win the game. Duke comes to town after a great win over Georgia Tech. They played really, really well in all facets of the game. They've got the number three defense in the conference and are playing really well on defense.

Offensively they're really, really good. Daniel Jones is an outstanding quarterback. Both Wilson and Brown have 700 and 600 yards, and they're averaging five and a half and almost six yards a carry. T.J. Rahming is one of the most dynamic receivers in the conference, and their offensive line is very physical and well-coached. So Duke is always a tough, challenging rivalry game for us, and we have a lot of work to do to get ready for them on Saturday.

Q. Looking at your tenure at Wake Forest, that first couple seasons were three wins, last season with seven, this season will at the very least be seven. Just what you can say about staying the course, sticking with the plan, and seeing the successes of it?
DAVE CLAWSON: Well, you're always in the midst of it. I don't think you ever feel like you're there. The second you feel that way, it's probably going to start slipping. So we did have a plan and we've stuck with it. But the most important part is the players have bought in and they've worked extremely hard. We've had improvement from them really year to year, week to week, and we've just got to keep pushing and keep trying to get better. This is a very tough conference. There is never, ever a week that you can relax, and the second you feel like you've arrived and you're there, again, it's going to slip backwards in a heartbeat.

Q. As far as your tight end, Cam Serigne, has what he meant to this program overtime and how he's been one of the people to lean on offensively, and one of the go-to guys and obviously someone that's always relevant when it comes to the team's successes?
DAVE CLAWSON: Yeah, I mean, again, with Cam, he's an outstanding player. He's always been a gifted receiver. He worked really hard to become a good blocker. But I just appreciate how unselfish he is. He's willing to take on any role to help our football team win.

Sometimes guys come back for a fifth year and their mindset changes, and it becomes about them. That never, ever happened with Cam, and I really appreciate him because of that. He's just a great kid to have on the team. He's been a great leader for our program, a two-year captain. But just such an unselfish example with everything he does. Again, we're going to miss him, but I'm glad we have him for two more games.

Q. I know you talked about this before, but when you said over the off-season that your expectation coming in was for Kendall to be the starter at quarterback, that you also kind of hoped that that would be a little bit of a push for John. How did that kind of work out? Has this exceeded even your expectations for how John would respond to that?
DAVE CLAWSON: Well, I just think competition brings out the best in people. John's a very competitive -- I mean, internally, we were splitting reps with the ones. I just didn't want it to be the daily question of who is your starting quarterback? But all through camp, all through spring, those guys split reps at the ones and John won the job.

It wasn't like Kendall didn't play well. I've said from the get-go, that sometimes in a quarterback competition, a guy loses it. In this case, the guy won it. John just pushed himself so hard and was so driven, and I think that push and that competitor in him has been the engine that's driven our team this year. He never, ever gives up on a play, a situation. Just demands so much of it himself, and in turn, I think nobody else on the team wants to let him down. Again, just really proud of him. If anybody in college football deserves this type of year, it's him after what he went through the first couple of years.

Q. Yeah, that was the other thing I wanted to ask you about, I think you hear those stories of guy gets hit so much early in his career that it has a very negative impact on him for years afterwards. How is it that John never seemed to have gotten rattled by some of the significant issues that he had to deal with in terms of this offense developing around him? What has that said about his perseverance and character that hasn't affected his game at all?
DAVE CLAWSON: Well, he's such a competitor, and he's so hard on himself. You're absolutely right. I've seen quarterbacks without his type of mental toughness, that those things would destroy him and they never come back from it. I think there are a lot of kids on our team that the adversity that they went through -- we played a lot of guys here on offense that were playing before they should have played. They weren't ready to play. We just had nobody else to play. That situation will either make you or break you.

Fortunately for us, I think it made John. I think it made Phil Haynes. I think it made Ryan Anderson, it made Cam Serigne. And now those guys have become really good players in the ACC and our team leaders. So you're absolutely right. I mean, you know, that can force you either way. For us, John had the make-up that made him, and it still drives him and still fuels him.

Q. Your offense has been on fire these last four games. What have you seen from John and the offense and why you guys have taken it up another notch in these last four games?
DAVE CLAWSON: Well, I think he's just playing with a lot of confidence. He's gotten very comfortable at the offense. He's made really good decisions. He makes quick decisions. He's thrown so many footballs to these guys over four years, Cam Serigne and Chuck Wade and Tabari Hines, all these guys started playing together three and four years ago. That chemistry between a quarterback and a receiver takes time. How your going to run the slant versus press or off or sift coverage, or, I mean, all these different things. It's just the accumulation of reps over four years, there starts to be a real benefit to that.

So I think these guys know where to expect the ball and when to expect it, and because of that we're able to put it in tighter windows than we were a year ago or two years ago. But I think a lot of it has to do that our offensive line has improved, and John has more time now, and our receivers have more time to get open.

Q. Last week Bronco Mendenhall was kind of talking about when somebody asked him if he could make one rule change in the sport what it would be, and he talked about how coaches should not leave their school until after they play in the bowl game. I'm curious, as a coach that's been through that experience, what your perspective is on something like that, and if you think that's a feasible idea?
DAVE CLAWSON: Well, I think philosophically I agree with him. I just don't think the way the hiring cycle is, and the way the recruiting cycle is that that's realistic. I had a situation that I would have loved to coach the bowl game at Bowling Green and finish the year with the team, but I was now the head coach at Wake Forest. To miss three weeks of recruiting and not put a staff together during that time, I wouldn't be doing my job, especially with the signing date now being really in December, I think that problem is going to get worse.

As a coach in a new job, you can't miss a recruiting cycle. If you can't recruit a class in a year, they're going to fire you three years later.

So unless athletic directors get together and agree to change when they're allowed to fire coaches and hire coaches, if they're going to move the signing date back another month, I just don't think it's real. So philosophically I agree with him, I just don't think pragmatically that's real.

The role that I'd like to see changed is they eliminated the three-man wedge and kickoff returns. I think they should eliminate the two men. We've seen more of those high-speed, double-family, two-guys together blocks this year. If you want to make the game safer, I think that's a role that should be looked into of eliminating the double teams from the back lines on kickoff return.

Q. You understand the history of Wake Forest football as well as anyone. You understand how hard it is to do what you've done and get your program where it is right now. It might even be harder now to sustain that, particularly when other schools come after your staff in situations like that. You talked about your plan to get to where you are. Have you changed your plan now that you've gotten here, and what is the Wake Forest plan in the years to come?
DAVE CLAWSON: Well, I don't think we've capped what we can do here. I think there is still a higher ceiling of what we can accomplish. I think if you look at the investment in our program here, I'm hoping that dynamic has changed. I mean, we're investing $70 to $75 million in new practice facilities and locker rooms, and strength and conditioning center. We have a sports performance center, an indoor, we're going to have a nutrition center, new offices. You don't do that just so you can get to six wins every three years.

So we've made progress, but this isn't the end all. We still think there is a lot more that we can accomplish here. I know our players feel that way, and I know our staff feels that way.

Mike, thank you for everything. Every week, your professionalism, just working with you at all the meetings, the ACC was very lucky and very fortunate to have somebody like you, and you are a true professional. Thank you very, very much for the way you've treated me in my four years in the league. You're going to be missed.

MIKE FINN: Thanks, Dave, I appreciate that.

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