I'm convinced that the first man that we need to approach, and make him say 'no' if necessary, is Dave Clawson. IMO - he would be worth a GT record $$ outlay to pull him and his coaching staff. IMO, there is a big dropoff in quality from Clawson to the next best candidate (probably Chadwell if you're asking). There are many points that make my case:
1) Proven winner in ACC. He has done so with less resources and at the head of a small academic minded university. He has already done the job that needs doing at GT. If our floor is 6 straight bowls and competing for conference championships, as Clawson has done at WAKE FOREST, what could be done at GT with a better pick of talent?
2) Runs a real development oriented program, repeatedly identifying overlooked talent. Critical for GT as we will never be a top 10 recruiting school.
6) Is loyal. Has passed up opportunities to move up before. We'd have to lay out a convincing case (and head turning offer) in order to make him even think about it. Perhaps he will feel that he has now achieved everything that is possible at Wake and would be ready for a new challenge with a higher ceiling.
7) Knows how to adapt. His early Wake Forest teams chewed clock and tried to grind you out, because they couldn't protect the QB. His coaching staff has adjusted and developed a killer RPO game over time.
1) Proven winner in ACC. He has done so with less resources and at the head of a small academic minded university. He has already done the job that needs doing at GT. If our floor is 6 straight bowls and competing for conference championships, as Clawson has done at WAKE FOREST, what could be done at GT with a better pick of talent?
2) Runs a real development oriented program, repeatedly identifying overlooked talent. Critical for GT as we will never be a top 10 recruiting school.
"The key to our success is to find the guys who can still develop and become as good as those four- and five-star guys," Clawson said. "They're not missing anything physically. It's just a year of development. I really believe a lot of our players, after a year of development in our program, they'd be four-star players."
3) Satisfies the option-loving contingent - a unifying hire - without having an option stigma. If you're an engineer who appreciates an optimized system, listen to this:The playbook is not encyclopedic in length. Some offenses choose to answer the questions defenses pose with myriad plays, while Wake Forest builds multiple answers into relatively few plays.
“I would say that what we do is very systematic like the triple option,” Ruggiero said. “They can just go out in the game and not do anything different that week game plan-wise, their offense is a game plan, where a lot of other offenses are ok, what’s the defense doing? Let’s put this in this week and let’s put that in this week and let’s try and change this on this route because they’re doing that. We don’t do that. We run our system.”
4) Offense is progressive and in line with what is currently winning in CFB. You can draw many similarities with what #2 Tennessee is doing under Josh Heupel. Wake is 17th in pace this year and have the ability to go very fast, and hit you with the changeup too.“We have a variable tempo running game,” Deacons offensive coordinator Warren Ruggiero told Sports Illustrated. “Some things happen very fast. Some things happen somewhere in the middle, and some things happen very slow. The one thing that happens slowly, everyone looks at and says oh my gosh and that’s why they love to talk about it.”
5) Weaken the opposition. Starting next year, Wake is a permanent opponent. 6) Is loyal. Has passed up opportunities to move up before. We'd have to lay out a convincing case (and head turning offer) in order to make him even think about it. Perhaps he will feel that he has now achieved everything that is possible at Wake and would be ready for a new challenge with a higher ceiling.
7) Knows how to adapt. His early Wake Forest teams chewed clock and tried to grind you out, because they couldn't protect the QB. His coaching staff has adjusted and developed a killer RPO game over time.
