Kevin Higgins moves into off-field role

Wake Forest’s offensive coaching staff that’s been together for so long needs a new wide receivers coach.

Kevin Higgins is stepping away from his role as wide receivers coach and moving into an off-field position overseeing recruiting, personnel, the transfer portal and NIL directives, the program announced Monday night.

““I am so grateful for my long-standing relationship with Dave Clawson, Warren Ruggiero and our entire staff at Wake Forest,” Higgins said through a news release. “This new leadership position will allow me to continue contributing to the success of our football program and align our efforts across many areas.”

This is the first change to Wake's on-field offensive staff since Wayne Lineburg took over as tight ends coach/special teams coordinator for the 2017 season. Higgins was one of five assistants who's been at Wake Forest for nine seasons; the others are Ruggiero (Wake's offensive coordinator), running backs coach John Hunter, offensive line coach Nick Tabacca and defensive line coach Dave Cohen.

Higgins has spent a total of 46 years in coaching, across high school, college and the NFL. He’s been at Wake Forest for the past nine seasons — all of Clawson’s tenure — and has overseen the growth of the Deacons’ receivers, which has been one of the strongest positions.

“Kevin Higgins … has done an incredible job developing our student-athletes on and off the field over the past nine years at Wake Forest,” Clawson said through the news release. “Throughout the last nine years, Kevin has been my right-hand man on so many program-altering decisions that allowed us to build a competitive program in the ACC.

“Despite my best efforts to try to convince and recruit Coach Higgins to continue one more season as our receivers coach, he has decided to remain in our program with a critical role of leading our recruiting efforts and continuing to be an incredible mentor to our entire football team.”

Higgins, 67, was head coach at The Citadel from 2005-13 before joining Clawson at Wake Forest. He spent four seasons on the staff of the Detroit Lions, and prior to that was the head coach at Lehigh from 1994-2000 (Clawson was his offensive coordinator for the first two of those seasons).