Wake Forest acted quickly to land its new head coach.
According to AtléticoThe Demon Deacons are hiring Washington State coach Jake Dickert just days after Dave Clawson resigned. Clawson announced Monday that he was resigning after 11 seasons as the team’s head coach.
Washington State is 23-20 in three-plus seasons under Dickert. He took over midway through the 2021 season after coach Nick Rolovich was fired over a protracted vaccine fight with the university. The Cougars have recorded two winning seasons in Dickert’s three full seasons with the school and went 8-4 in 2024 during his first season in the college football wilderness.
Oregon State and Washington State were effectively left without a conference before the season when 10 of the Pac-12 members found other conferences. Oregon State and Wazzu formed the “conference” portion of their schedules through an alliance with the Mountain West and are spearheading an effort to rebuild the Pac-12 with a variety of current Mountain West teams.
Washington State lost three straight games to end the season after an 8-1 start in 2024, although the Cougars were one of the most entertaining teams in college football. Washington State scored nearly 37 points per game, but gave up more than 28 points per game.
Quarterback John Mateer led college football with 44 total touchdowns, although he too is leaving Washington State. Dickert announced Monday that Mateer would enter the transfer portal.
Mateer’s decision to transfer comes as Washington State offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle was hired as Oklahoma’s offensive coordinator. The change in Pullman may be indicative of the difficult future that awaits Washington State at the highest level of college football, as the Cougars are no longer part of a power conference.
Wake Forest went 4-8 in 2024 for the second consecutive four-win season. The Demon Deacons won 11 games in 2021, but fell to 8-5 in 2022 before finishing 4-8 in 2023. In 11 seasons at Wake Forest, Clawson’s teams finished 67-69 with seven bowl appearances. He came to Wake Forest after five years in charge of Bowling Green. The Falcons went 32-32 during his time there and made it to three bowl games.