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Got a good feeling.
A warm sensation inside my stomach. A calm in my head. A tingle in my shoulders. A jolt of optimism, seemingly out of nowhere yet palpable. An authentic uplift. Not wishful; confident.
Something important and momentous is about to happen.
Up there in Winston-Salem.
On Saturday at high noon.
Dabo and his Clemson crusaders will run onto the field and we will think we’re living through what happened two years ago when Wake took Dabo to the brink – then let him off the hook. They escaped in overtime with a 51-45 win.
Shattered all of us.
All of us. It was punishing.
We had Sam Hartman. We were on the national college football radar. That loss took us off the radar.
I stared at the stairs as I walked out asking myself why Wake couldn’t have won that game on September 24, 2022, risen to 4 and 0, wishing the result had been different, wanting Clemson to stop cremating us, wondering what it would have been like to have gone to Clemson and know the feeling of winning almost every game for decades.
“I’m going to take that game to my grave and not feel good about it,” said coach Dave Clawson during his press conference this week. That game went down two years ago.
He means this. He made the same reference to his grave two years ago. The game makes him ponder his own death.
That’s how serious that loss was.
We all feel the same way, Dave.
I like hearing you being honest about the pain you feel when losing. It makes me believe you’re working day and night right now to do everything in your power to get your team to win on Saturday because you detest that painful feeling.
Good, you don’t want to lose. You seriously don’t want to lose. You’ve never beaten Clemson and it eats your soul. Good. Warms my heart.
Saturday they’re Clemson is going for a 16th straight win against us.
Sixteen straight.
Sweet 16 for them; Sour 16 for Wake Forest.
Bitter. Sour. Distasteful. Bad.
In other words, Clemson owns Wake Forest in football. Harsh truths are hard to type.
That means we haven’t beaten them since around the time of the iPhone launch and the 2008 financial crisis, both a lifetime ago.
Feels like Clemson has beaten us 100 times in a row or 1,000. Feels like we all stopped counting it got so repetitive and unprovocative.
But on that day two years ago what struck me most was the Clemson fans in attendance actually seemed concerned about whether they would beat Wake Forest. This was unusual. They had come to realize they couldn’t just bomb Wake 84 to 24 like they did in the 1980s.
A lot has happened since then. Wake has fallen back. Clemson this year is ascending ranked in the top 10 nationally – a familiar spot for them. Five-star NFL prospects sparkle up and down the roster: Cade Klubnick at QB; Antonio Williams at receiver; a freshman All-American defensive end named T. J. Parker; a high-end safety, R.J. Mickens.
Yawn.
“Clemson’s skill level is really high-end,” said Clawson. “The offensive line really stands out.”
This is always the case.
It’s Clemson football. They’re great.
It’s as predictable as dirt in the woods.
But weird things are happening in college football nowadays. Vanderbilt beat Alabama last Saturday. Still seems like it didn’t happen.
You can’t predict outcomes as easily anymore with so many teams replenishing their rosters yearly with star players by paying them big bank. A team who lands a star QB in the transfer portal can go from terrible to good immediately. See Vanderbilt.
We’ve got guys at receiver who are starting to shine: The Deuce is Loose Alexander, Horatio Open Fields, and Micah Maneuver Mays.
We aren’t favored because we’re not as talented. But last week at NC State they showed they’ve got determination. They fight.
So does coach Clawson, who is getting feistier. As disadvantaged as Wake is in this money game, I think that’s what is necessary now.
I’ve been critical of him in the past for complaining about the new college football free for all that make it all about paying players to join your team. But during his press conference this week he let me and everybody else know he’s going to say what’s on his mind – the audacity tells me this guy is super serious about shocking America on Saturday and being slightly rebellious in his approach the rest of the season because he doesn’t feel he has anything to lose.
“People don’t like it when I talk about this but I’m past the point of caring,” he said.
Damn, Dave. I like it. Cool.
You’re past the point of caring.
Recklessness resonates especially coming from a sophisticated and articulate guy that you are.
“When you go to the portal to fix problems, it is super expensive,” he said. “This has become a payroll sport.”
Because he’s past the point of caring, he threw out dollar figures which was juicy. When you have to go out and pay a cornerback $750,000 to join the team and the other corner already on your team made All ACC last season but you’re not giving him that same amount, “that impacts the locker room. It can create more problems than it provides answers.”
You can create more turnover for your football team in the next year. “All these imbalances in NIL impact your locker room.”
Clawson wasn’t done airing his aggravations about modern day college football. He mentioned there’s a team that faked injuries against his team – he didn’t name the team but we all know it was Ole Miss – and they did it again last weekend. “We need to cut out that nonsense.”
Let me put this another way: you won’t see Claw clawing a chicken dinner at Bojangles with Corrupt Kiffen anytime the rest of your life.
Bad blood forever boiling from now through eternity. That ticked off Claw as it did you and me.
Clawson’s got his claws out. He’s past the point of caring what people think when he speaks his mind.
Sounds like a guy ready for some rough-housing at his team’s house on Saturday. Sounds like a guy ticked off. Sounds like a guy who will make his players believe there’s no way Clemson is coming into Winston-Salem and beating Wake Forest for the 16th straight time.
Not this Saturday.
Got a good feeling.
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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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