Wake Forest has agreed to a deal with Washington State's Jake Dickert to become the Demon Deacons' next football coach, a person familiar with the decision said Wednesday.
The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the school hasn't spoken publicly yet about its coaching search. Dickert is set to replace Dave Clawson, who resigned unexpectedly Monday after 11 seasons that included regular bowl bids and an Atlantic Coast Conference division title.
The Athletic first reported Wake Forest was set to hire Dickert.
Dickert, 41, had been the defensive coordinator when he took over during the 2021 season as the Cougars' interim coach after Washington State fired Nick Rolovich for refusing a state mandate that all employees get vaccinated against COVID-19. Dickert led the team to a 3-3 finish to earn the permanent job, then went 20-17 in the three seasons since.
Washington State has spent nine weeks in the AP Top 25 poll over the past two seasons, peaking at No. 13 during a five-week run amid a 4-0 start in 2023 and reaching No. 19 in early November of this season.
Washington State went 8-4 this year, the first since the Pac-12 fell apart with the majority of its schools scattering to the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big 12 and Big Ten. The Cougars are set to play No. 22 Syracuse in the Holiday Bowl on Dec. 27.
Dickert arrived at Washington State after a three-year run at Wyoming in a career with stops that have included the Division II level, though those had generally been at schools in the central part of the country or further west.
He'll relocate to the eastern seaboard for this job at an elite private university with one of the smallest undergraduate enrollments in the Bowl Subdivision ranks (5,471 students in the 2023-24 academic year). It also comes as the Demon Deacons have suffered through consecutive 4-8 seasons in Clawson's otherwise successful run, a product of a changing landscape in college sports that hindered Wake Forest's successful formula of retaining and developing players to compete with schools featuring four- and five-star prospects.
Notably, those changes have included free player movement through the transfer portal and players being able to profit from their athletic fame through name, image and likeness (NIL) opportunities — a combination that has led to roster upheaval across college sports.
In Wake Forest's case, the Demon Deacons had an 11-win season that included a trip to the ACC title game in 2021, as well as brief stints in the top 10 of the AP Top 25 in 2021 and 2022 amid a run of seven straight bowl appearances before the past two four-win seasons.
In an emotional news conference Tuesday, Clawson said he “just felt like it was time” to step aside to let Wake Forest take a fresh approach to the changes, which include the looming arrival of revenue sharing with athletes. Clawson went as far as to say it felt as if it was “somebody else's job.”
And now, that's set to be Dickert.
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