It’s Officials: Deacs Put Fortunes In The Hands Of Forbes

It looks all set now: Wake Forest’s next coach is Steve Forbes, who comes to Reynolda from Johnson City, Tennessee, where he has coached East Tennessee State for the last four years.

He was previously an assistant to Bruce Pearl at Tennessee, where he and Wake A.D. John Currie got to know each other.

Forbes comes to Winston-Salem in bizarre and unprecedented circumstances. It’s not even clear if he’ll be introduced in person due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Even if he is, reporters may or may not show up. It’s not at all clear when he can meet his players or ask Manning’s decommitted recruits if they’d reconsider (if he is indeed interested).

Recruiting is suspended due to the pandemic so meaningful player evaluation is out. All in all, it’s a more challenging situation than it would be otherwise, not that it was going to be easy.

The ACC has always been brutally competitive and expansion hasn’t helped.

Still, Forbes could be a great fit. He’s obviously successful and we suspect that his offense will be more entertaining than either Manning’s or Bzdelik’s.

His job now, aside from putting together the best roster possible, is to win over fans and supporters.

With his addition, the ACC has, in the last couple of years, added Jeff Capel (Pitt), Chris Mack (Louisville), Kevin Keatts (NC State), Mike Young (Virginia Tech) and Josh Pastner (Georgia Tech). Only Pastner seems like a mediocre hire and despite that, his team was truly dangerous this past season.

We want every ACC team to be well coached and competitive and it looks like Wake Forest has a chance to be exactly that.

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