After Ned’s fantastic basketball recruiting article, which I highly recommend taking a look at if you haven’t already, it’s time for us here at BSD to look at the ongoing football recruiting cycle.

Last year, Wake Forest capped off a season not only by winning the Military Bowl over Temple, but also received commitments from some impact recruits such as: Mike Allen, Sage Surratt, Troy Simon and Jeffery Burley.

Wake signed Clawson to an 8 year extension, solidifying his job and making Winston-Salem an even more attractive option for recruits. Clawson has already nabbed 6 recruits so far for the Class of 2018, demonstrating Wake’s ability to recognize talent very early and pursue them aggressively.

The head coach has also been decently vocal with what the team needs are, citing a new crop of Offensive Linemen in to prepare for the massive departure of them in two seasons.

Using the coaches notes, and the handy dandy Blogger So Dear Football scholarship chart, I compiled a list of the most realistic targets for Wake Football. Now it would be impossible for me to pick them all, so I focused more on need and then best fits.

Now I wish to make a disclaimer: This list is nowhere near exhaustive. If I put every single player that is interested in the Deacs/they have offered, this list would be longer than the actual amount of classes UNC athletes have to take.

The football recruiting cycle is a very volatile process. Flips are common, sleepers pop up, its a wire-to wire process, and here we’ll keep up updated on this. With the amount of offers, commits etc that come through, the spreadsheet will be updated about every two weeks. With that being said, lets get into some of these prospects

What we recommend is to frequently visit the Wake Forest Football Recruiting Section. We have ramped up our coverage there and are writing articles on most of the offers that we see out there, no matter how unlikely it is we land them.

Click here for the 2018 Football Big Board

A few things stand out here when glancing at the board. First the pipelines are starting to form. You see the team consistently going after North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. All three states are widely regarded places where impact recruits will come from.

The needs also stand out. Clawson has explicitly stated that he wants to prepare for the mass exodus of offensive linemen after the 2018 season, and has been aggressively going after big lineman. When looking at the scholarship chart, the defensive line and DB’s also start to get thin after the next two years so it appears that Clawson also wants to jump on that before it’s too late. For now let’s go into a few recruits that you should be keeping an eye out for. I’m going to exclude the already committed ones at the time for this article, as in a later one we’ll break each one of them down

Jaycee Horn

If you’ve been keeping up with Wake football, you have probably heard his name a few times. A 6’1 170 Cb that just makes plays. Right now Alabama is his leader, but its a very long process. The kid can flat out ball and at a time where CB is a pretty young position any help is useful

Sam Baker

The offensive live has been one of the biggest question marks lately and will be one of the X-Factors of this upcoming season. Landing baker could do wonders as he appears to be a big and powerful mover already. Clawson wants to get ready for the impending exodus of lineman and this could be another good place to start, especially after the commitment of tackle Mike Edwards. Putting together a good line in this class could pay dividends. He’s named Toledo and Indiana as his leaders but that was before getting offered by Wake so we’ll have to see.

Elijah Brown

This is one that I’m actually very excited about. He’s been between Wake and NC State and could fit right in here. Not too much film that I could find, but given his measurables: 6’4, 270, he’s right up the alley for what Clawson and Sawvel would be looking for in this new scheme.

What to expect going forward

To be honest, I wish I could give a straight answer to this question. There are 11 scholarships opening up after this graduating year, so with that and unforeseen departures, I would see this being a smaller than last years 20 man class. As mentioned before, this is the trickiest sport to follow for recruiting, so it’s very hard at this stage to see exactly what the make up will be.

I am still also very happy to see Wake fighting tooth and nail with the likes of Alabama, Auburn, LSU, and Ohio state on so many recruits. It speaks volume to the level of work that the team and Dave Clawson have done to make this place more attractive to recruits. Recruits fade, they pop up out of nowhere, it’s a wild ride. I hope you’ll stay on that ride with us at Blogger So Dear

Happy finals week Deacs, I’ll see ya next time