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College football fans may be wondering what the big brouhaha is with Wake Forest having a fantastic season and moving to a best-ever record of 9 and 1 after out-playing NC State Saturday. Well, the secret is out.
There are many directions to go in answering this question but I think the most important and intriguing answer comes forth in this quote from the coach, Dave Clawson, in a recent Footballscoop.com about this highly unusual football program. The article reads:
Like its neighbor Duke to the east, Wake must find players that can thrive the rigors of an elite academic institution on Monday through Friday and against an ACC schedule on Saturdays. “Our kids have to compete with Clemson and Notre Dame on the field, and with 3.95 GPA, 30-plus ACT kids in the classroom,” said Clawson.
Think about that weighty thought for a few seconds. The team is full of college football players who literally compete in the classroom against students who ranked in the top echelons of their high school classes through exceptional discipline and possess an abundance of natural intellectual capabilities. Put another way, they’re great thinkers.
You may think this an exaggeration, that the coach is overselling the academic prowess of Wake Forest students?
He’s not.
I lived through the grueling academic experience as an undergraduate student at Wake Forest University. What I remember most is that every single student at the school was capable of thinking at a high level, engaged in the life of intellectual exploration, and ambitious to stretch the limits of their intellectual potential.
In every single class, I took from the first one to the last, the students were tough to outperform on tests. From the type A student in the front row to those in the back pretending not to be ambitious, to even those who didn’t go to every class, you faced a fierce mental battle to outduel them in the classroom.
Whatever people say about Duke or Harvard or Stanford or some other colleges ranking higher in US News and World Report based on the innate intelligence undergraduate students, there’s not one university in the country I know of that combines a group of higher-quality students with high academic pressures and standards than Wake Forest.
Sure I knew some very smart people at Wake who found it a bit of a cruise to excel in the classroom at Wake, but the vast majority of them will tell you Wake Forest was a difficult school to endure academically. Graduation was not a given at all. Many people dropped out. If you got your diploma from there, you seriously earned it. It took a pound of flesh out of your brain resources – and more.
What made Wake Forest especially grueling was the exceedingly tough grading system. With no hesitation and staggering consistency, Wake Forest professors would give out Cs, Ds, and Fs. Seriously, like you would not believe. I have yet to hear of a university that graded its students with more low grades than Wake Forest.
This grade pressure wasn’t just my experience. Ask anyone who went there and chances are they’ll tell you how tough it was to get through Wake Forest especially because of the widespread, almost obsessive grade deflation. Wake Forest made its students work far beyond what you might realistically expect. If you didn’t work hard enough – even if you learned a ton and did actually apply yourself well – you could easily get a D or F for a grade. Work really really hard and know your stuff: C.
This whole philosophy is part of the secret sauce of this year’s football team and increasingly successful program over the past several years under Clawson’s leadership. He’s extremely demanding and his players have to meet his high expectations – just like in their Wake Forest classes.
There’s no slouching, no excuse-making. It’s all about discipline, day after day, focusing on the fundamentals, and striving for excellence, not just one day or week but every day throughout the entire season and off-season.
After the NC State game, Clawson said his team did not play a “clean game” meaning they made several mistakes including three interceptions and allowing a 101-yard kick-off return. But they found a way to win, said Clawson, and he was proud of his team for that.
This team found a way to win as much with its sharp minds as their bodies. Their brains continue to be honed with high intensity on the football field and in the classroom. They did not lose their composure and make stupid plays like unnecessary roughness penalties. That’s mental and they controlled their minds so that potentially fatal mistake didn’t cost them an opportunity to go to the ACC championship.
They thought this game through as players, using up to 18 guys on defense in various situations so they would be fresh. What that means is all 18 guys had to be intellectually dialed in to play at any moment. And they were. Tough to prepare that many guys to be starters on defense. But Wake Forest got ready in advance and with enormous attention to detail. It’s how the entire university rolls now and for many decades.
More than most people think sharp intellectual skills are more important to success on the football field. Former NFL quarterback Steve Young, who also earned a law degree, unequivocally said that playing quarterback in the NFL is much harder than law school which is widely understood to be a tough mental achievement.
He then went on to point out just how smart Tom Brady is because he’s mastered the quarterback position better than anyone ever has. Far from a great natural athlete, Brady’s superhuman success is due more to his mental preparation and sharp, quick thinking on the field than his ability to sprint away from the blitz with his fast running speed and elusive moves.
The same dynamic now plays out with this Wake Forest football team. They’re good athletes but few of them are elite. Collectively, though, they’re among the most elite intellectually of any college football team in America up there with Stanford and Notre Dame – and very possibly even above them. The Wake Forest football players are smart dudes.
When they go to class before practice each day, they get challenged to think with sharp and precise critical thinking skills. They have no choice if they want to pass the courses. There is no easy street in the Wake Forest curriculum.
They need to do this to keep pace with all the other non-football players in those classes who excel at critical thinking and are highly motivated. Then they go to practice and continue using their brains. Then at the games, they’re ready to outthink their opponents because they’ve prepared mentally in holistic ways no other teams can match.
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Sammy Sportface, a sports blogger, galvanizes, inspires, and amuses The Baby Boomer Brotherhood. And you can learn about his vision and join this group's Facebook page here:
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Great insight, Sammy.
Nice to see a University doing it the right way be rewarded with winning. Seems that lacking in many places.