Wake Goes Cross Country

Wake Forest takes a cross-country trip this weekend and doesn’t even get a game against one of those “long-time” conference rivals, Stanford and Cal. The Demon Deacons play in Corvallis Saturday afternoon against Oregon State in a game that was all of about 10 months in the making.

This is the game that replaces the trip to Oxford, Mississippi. Wake was scheduled to play at Ole Miss this season until financial arrangements got in the way. With the collapse of the old Pac-12 and with the reformulated Pac-12 not yet in place, Oregon State can always find room for another P4 opponent. And thus, it came to be.

Wake goes into the game 3-2 overall and 1-2 in conference play. Oregon State is 0-6. Like Washington State, as the two left-behinds from the old Pac-12, they have no conference schedule, although they are playing several Mountain West schools this season. But the Beavers have had to play Texas Tech, Houston, and in-state rival Oregon, among others.

Personal History Only

The two schools have zero history against each other. This will be the first time they have played against each other. But it is not new for the two head coaches. Wake’s Jake Dickert spent one-plus seasons at Washington State as an assistant, part of a season as the interim head coach, followed by three seasons as head coach. Dickert is 1-2 as a head coach against Oregon State and has yet to win in Corvallis.

He knows the Beavers and head coach Trent Bray very well, as so the large handful of players who left Pullman with him to go to Wake Forest. This is Bray’s second season running the Beavers. They were 5-7 last year. So his overall 5-13 record is a concern in Corvallis. The program fired special teams coach Jamie Christian earlier this week.

When the Beavers are winning, Reser Stadium can be a tricky place to play. They aren’t winning. That makes the cross-country travel the trickiest part of the schedule. Wake is staying in Eugene, the home of the Oregon Ducks, and about an hour-plus drive to Corvallis. The Deacs left Winston-Salem on Thursday afternoon. But going west to east is the easy part because you are picking up three hours of time. The return trip, when you are basically losing most of a day to travel, is the tricky part.

Maturity

Dickert said this week that he is grateful for the chance to take a team cross country since away games in Stanford and Berkley are on the horizon.

The Wake head coach said going to the other side of the country to play a winless team is “A maturity test” for his team. “The narrative is wrong,” he said of Bray being under fire for his won-loss record at Oregon State. “This is a Power Four football team in my mind,” Dickert said.

Dickert brings familiarity with Corvallis and Oregon State and even some of the Beavers players. But what he lacks is familiarity with the OSU quarterback. For that, he can depend upon several of his defensive players.

Recognizable Signal Caller

Maalik Murphy spent last season at Duke before moving out west for 2025. Like OSU, he is struggling against some high-end competition. He is not quite at a 60% completion rate and has nine throwing touchdowns to seven interceptions.

Bray told the media this week that Oregon State is close to winning, but not making the critical plays when they are needed. “We’re in position to win games, and we’re not making the plays to win those games.” Of those six losses, OSU lost by four at App State last weekend, and the Beavers lost by only three in overtime at home to Houston two weeks ago. “We’ve got to keep coaching these guys and put them in a position to be successful,” he added. Bray said “Finishing strong” is the emphasis for his team at this point.

Discipline

Finishing strong has a different look for Dickert. The team has the ability to make a run toward the postseason. But as he preaches about controlling the controllable, his team is one of the most penalized in the country. The Deacs are averaging just under nine penalties per game, placing them 128^th in the country out of 136 FBS schools.

Last week, in the win at Virginia Tech, Wake committed 11 official penalties. That does not include offsetting penalties and calls that were declined. “I did not prepare the team for the noise,” he said of playing at Lane Stadium last week. “I don’t put that on them. And I don’t put that on Robby [Ashford]. I put that squarely on me,” he said. While he also acknowledged there were some referee interpretation calls, he said the high number of pre-snap calls were focus penalties. “You can’t have that,” he said. He added that he expects some penalties when the team is playing fast and physical. “But the controllable penalties were just way too much.”

Personnel

Because this is a non-conference game, no player availability report is required from Wake, and none shall be given. The status of running back Demond Claiborne will be known when the team takes the field for the first snap on offense. But Dickert has indicated that Claiborne will be wearing a yellow jersey at practice for the rest of the season, indicating modified contact and activity.