We’ll have plenty of time to talk about Jake Dickert.

Of staff moves and players retained. Of offensive schemes and how the former Washington State coach fits at Wake Forest. Of athletics director John Currie’s first football hire at his alma mater.

Of the Wednesday evening arrival at Smith-Reynolds Airport that was somehow both long- and short-awaited. The former because, well, Wake’s new football coach came from the other side of the country — did you guys know Moscow, Idaho, existed before the last 24 hours?

Dickert and his family arrived safely, greeted by a Deacon on a motorcycle and a couple dozen figureheads of Wake Forest. What’s bound to be an extensive carwash of handshakes began, in earnest, right there on the tarmac.

(By the way, if you’re going to have a welcoming committee at the airport … good idea to have Steve Forbes be there.)

Before we get into all of that, though, we need to talk about the short-awaited part of this.

It’s hard to wrap your head around the whiplash that is:

- Dave Clawson, after 11 years at Wake Forest, announces resignation on Monday afternoon.

- Tuesday morning, Clawson has farewell press conference — only it’s not a farewell because he’s remaining at Wake Forest in an advisory role. It’s more celebration of a tenure that accomplished much more than can be reflected in a 67-69 overall record; and yet, one that saw slippage in the last two seasons that had a lot to do with college football’s tectonic shifts over the last three years.

- Late Tuesday night, there’s a scheduled flight from Washington state to Winston-Salem and word starts traveling there could be news as early as Wednesday.

- Wednesday, and early, news comes that Dickert is Wake’s new football coach — the official release comes 43 hours, 50 minutes after official word of Clawson’s resignation was sent.

And now we’re here — this pivot from a coach who fit Wake Forest perfectly for most of a decade. Who could be tough on players, staff, even media — the most deserving of that trio, to be clear — but who was usually tough from a place of teaching.

Dave Clawson will leave Wake Forest eventually.

To answer one question that’s come frequently over the last couple of days: Yes, I could see Clawson coaching again.

Not at Wake Forest. Probably not on the power-conference level. But in the right fit, given a year or two away from doing the thing that’s given him so much purpose for roughly 63% of his life — Clawson could be a coach again. It’s the fit that matters most. Some small private school, perhaps in the region? One with stringent academic standards that could stand to have its football profile elevated?

CA-CAWWWW … ?

The other, more frequent question that comes up is some version of “how surprised by this were you?”

Simple question; complicated answer.

I spent a month, maybe longer, of the season thinking this was an inevitability. Listen to a guy’s press conferences for eight seasons, understand his mannerisms and inflections — you know when things have changed.

We didn't always see eye-to-eye but I'd like to think there was enough trust and respect to understand each other.

The red herring was how rejuvenated Clawson sounded in the last couple of weeks in the season. He saw revenue sharing as part of the House settlement as Wake’s avenue back to a type of competitive balance in college football. Not a level playing field, but one close to the balance that existed before NIL was bastardized into pay-for-play — which is when Wake Forest played for an ACC championship.

Based on the revelation of Tuesday’s press conference — Clawson pondered stepping away at the end of last season before finding his recharge button — he was trying to do the same. He just … couldn’t.

“I tried to embrace it. I tried to fight through it. I tried to get a new mindset with it,” Clawson said of coaching these days. “I just don’t want to do it. … It’s not how I’m wired, it’s not how I build programs, it’s not why I got into coaching.”

Which brings me to the chord that was struck at 12:03 p.m. Tuesday in Fox Family Commons at the McCreary Football Complex.

This was after all of the emotion. Speeches had been wrapped up for about an hour. There was a trickling from the room — Wake’s coaching staff milling around, donors and university officials circulating until it was appropriate to leave.

In the back of the room, four writers pecked away on keyboards. Not to speak for the other three but that’s a head-spinning thing to write about. There’s a stupid, fun, inside-baseball sports journalism debate on when to apply the term “era” to a coach’s tenure.

This was the end of an era.

There was Clawson, standing maybe 12 feet from the podium where he had just poured out more emotion than he ever seemed willing to share in the past 11 years. Talking to a … well, to be honest, I’m not sure who it was. Maybe this was an academic advisor; maybe it was an assistant trainer. It doesn’t matter for these purposes.

Clawson’s family waited nearby. Clawson remained to chat for several minutes. He was in no rush to leave.

He had as much time as was needed for Wake Forest.