Wake Forest ranked 9th in first CFP rankings
Wake Forest is ranked ninth in the season’s first edition of the College Football Playoff rankings, which were announced Tuesday night on ESPN.
It’s the program’s highest-ever CFP ranking – only the second ever – and it comes in the midst of the Deacons being 8-0 for the first time in school history.
The Deacons have the selection committee's attention with the undefeated ranking, according to selection committee chair Gary Barta.
"It’s a really solid team, veteran … an impressive, powerful offense that are putting up points. Obviously last week against Duke," Barta said on a teleconference Tuesday night. "But 8-0 – they’re undefeated, so any time you go undefeated I don’t care what sport you’re in or what conference you’re in or what level you’re playing at, that’s hard."
And then comes the detractor about Wake Forest, which sheds light on why four one-loss teams are ahead of the Deacons.
"I think the committee would say that their best win was at Virginia. Their strength of schedule, it’s not real strong. It’s very similar to Oklahoma’s," Barta said. "But when you compare it to some other programs above them, it’s not real strong.
"They don’t have a signature win. They have some nice wins, but they don’t have a signature win."
Of the four unbeaten Power 5 conference teams, Wake Forest and Oklahoma (No. 8) were distant from Georgia (No. 1) and Michigan State (No. 3). Cincinnati is at No. 6, while the one-loss teams ranked ahead of Wake Forest are Alabama (No. 2), Oregon (No. 4), Ohio State (No. 5) and Michigan (No. 7). Notre Dame is behind Wake Forest at No. 10.
Barta said the committee avoids projections, and so it's hard to gauge what Wake Forest's ceiling is if the Deacons win out and win the ACC championship.
He did say, though, that the Deacons need some other teams in front of them to lose at the same time emphasizing that Wake Forest needs to remain unbeaten.
"The committee does a great job, or tries really hard, to not project," Barta said. "So we have Wake Forest at 8-0 at No. 9, you know, they have to win out and others probably have to not win out to move way up, but we don’t spend time projecting that."
This is the first time that the ACC has not had a team in the top five of the first CFP rankings of a season. The ACC has sent a team to the four-team playoff every season (the playoffs started in 2014), including sending two last year with Clemson and Notre Dame (as the one-year arrangement with the league).
Wake Forest’s highest-ever CFP ranking comes two days after the Deacons appeared in the top 10 of the Associated Press poll, at No. 10, for the first time in program history.
Wake Forest is not only the lone unbeaten team in the ACC; the Deacons are the only ranked team in the ACC (in AP rankings) and every other team in the conference has at least two losses.
Wake Forest’s other appearance in the CFP rankings came at No. 19 in the first edition of the rankings for the 2019 season.
That was when the Deacons were 7-1 and had just blown out N.C. State. From there, injuries hobbled Wake Forest down the stretch and there was conflict of personal goals and team goals, and the Deacons limped through the rest of the season, finishing 8-5.
It’s that experience that coach Dave Clawson wants to be remembered this time around.
“The lesson we learned in ’19 was so painful and our guys remember it,” Clawson said. “We played N.C. State, we played well, and then we lost Scotty (Washington). We head up to Virginia Tech and we didn’t play well.
“We never quite got it back.”
In the past month, Clawson and players have talked about that team losing some discipline and focus in the final stages of the season.
Clawson expounded on that Tuesday.
“I’ve said this to our team multiple times: In order for us to go from good to great, we’ve got to stay healthy, we’ve got to develop depth and we have to remain unselfish and remain focused,” Clawson said. “And there are so many players on our team that are playing that went through ’19 that, that isn’t coach-speak.
They saw us not stay healthy, not have the depth, and get selfish. And that’s how a 7-1 start became a 1-4 finish. We were proud we were at that point, but we didn’t finish.”
Wake Forest’s mantra of going 1-0 each week, and this season’s mantra of “good to great,” has helped the Deacons to the first 8-0 start in program history – and so the Deacons want to be sure they don’t forget those things.
“Honestly it’s great, a lot of recognition and stuff, but to us it’s not a surprise at all. This is our goal and our goal is even higher than this,” safety Nick Andersen said. “Our goal is to be playing on January 10th, so with that in mind, we just keep going about our business.”
If it’s not clear: The CFP semifinal games are Dec. 30 and the national championship game is Jan. 10.