Wake Forest Completes a Perfect Early National Signing Period

Editor’s Note: This story was written on December 20th, 2017 to wrap up the Early National Signing Day Period. Today Wake Forest has already added one more player in Marquis Alston, Jr, but that is expected to be it for the 2018 recruiting class.

If there was any doubt what the strategy for head coach Dave Clawson and the Wake Forest staff was with regards to the new Early National Signing Day Period it was quickly put to rest as the staff signed 18 of its 21 commits for the 2018 class before 8:00 AM EST.

The first Early NSD went as well as possible for Wake Forest, as it signed all 21 commits to National Letters of Intent, and can now use the next two months to both get a big jump on the 2019 recruiting cycle, while also eying any home run recruits for the regular National Signing Day in early February.

Safety Peyton Woulard out of Suwanee, GA was the first to ink his National Letter of Intent and officially became a Demon Deacon at 7:02 AM.

The class, currently rated as 53rd nationally by 247Sports and 12th in the ACC, features 10 defensive players, 10 offensive players, and one special teams player in kicker Nick Sciba out of Clover, SC.

While there is no one guy who sticks out as head and shoulders above the rest, the class is highlighted on offense by 6-5, 280 pound offensive tackle DeVonte Gordon out of Maret School in Washington, D.C., and Pro-Style QB Sam Hartman out of Oceanside Collegiate Academy in Mount Pleasant, SC.

On the defensive side Kelijiha Brown, a defensive tackle out of Saluda, SC, and Ryan Smenda, a linebacker out of Florida who received an offer from Texas A&M earlier this month are big time gets.

Kenneth Dicks was the final signing of the day, waiting until early afternoon to ink his NLI. Dicks was really the only cause for nerves whatsoever, as he received 32 other offers aside from Wake so there was some slight consternation, but ultimately he signed and is a Demon Deacon as well!

The class has players from six states and one from the District of Columbia in DeVonte Gordon. Georgia led the way with 6 signings, while Florida featured 5 players, and North Carolina had 4.

We will have an updated Scholarship Chart up at some point this week, but for now we can sit back, relax, and enjoy the fact that it’s not even 2018 yet and Dave Clawson and his staff have already cemented a fringe top-50 2018 class.

Dave Clawson will hold a press conference at 4 PM where we should learn a bit more about what the staff thinks about each player, as well as who is planning on coming in early for Spring ball at Wake Forest. We will recap that as well with any tidbits that stick out.

Kudos to the staff and congratulations to all the new guys on their commitment to an outstanding academic school in Wake Forest with an extremely bright future on the gridiron as well.