Ole Miss goes on the road for the first time this season and will face Wake Forest on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. CT. The Rebels have outscored Furman and Middle Tennessee State a combined 128-3 so far this season and are ranked fifth nationally.

Wake Forest is 1-1 after a win over North Carolina A&T and a 31-30 loss to Virginia last week, when the Cavaliers scored 14 unanswered in the fourth quarter.

Demon Deacons head coach Dave Clawson discussed Ole Miss during his weekly The Dave Clawson Show at the Playground Golf and Sports Bar last night on Wednesday night.

Clawson, who has been at Wake since 2014, is trying to rebound from a 4-8 season in 2023. He was the ACC Coach of the Year after winning the ACC Atlantic and 11 games in 2021.

"To be good in the transfer market, you need money. You need resources, and they have it. But to their credit they’ve recruited the right people, and as coaches, they use them the right way.

There are school out there with $20 million collectives that aren’t going to win 10-11 games because they didn’t evaluate well and aren’t using them the right way. Ole Miss, I don’t know what their collective number is, but I would guess up or near that $20 million mark, and they’ve got the right guys.

The defensive linemen they’ve invested in are All-SEC caliber players. Their quarterback (Jaxson Dart) who has his own NIL jet deal, he goes free jet service or whatever, it’s worth it. He’s an NFL quarterback; he’s a Heisman Trophy candidate. The receiver they got from Louisiana Tech (Tre Harris) is a big time player.

They’ve built a really good team in a very smart way and used their resources well. They deserve credit. A lot of times people say ‘Well, they got a big collective’ but a lot of people have big collectives. Not everyone uses it correctly; they’ve used it well, evaluated well and are good coaches."

"He's a good football coach. I know at times he can be a polarizing figure in college football and isn’t afraid to speak his mind, but anywhere he’s been, no one doubts that man’s ability to coach football – as an offensive strategist and playcaller, as an evaluator he definitely knows what he’s doing.

Ole Miss has never been this good. I don’t think they’ve ever won double-digit games like this in back-to-back seasons. They are a legitimate SEC and national championship contender.

They are in a conference with Georgia and Texas and other teams in their league and at some point I’m sure getting through those games will be challenging, but their talent level, in my 11 years here, it pops off the film."

"He's a big, physical kid with a strong arm and is a great athlete. He’s really good. The thing about it is they throw the ball down the field. In today’s football, there’s bubble screens and forward shuffles, but these guys play pitch and catch down the field. These aren’t throws that are traditionally high-completion throws. He’s a good player."

"(Tre Harris) is a guy that if you play off of him, they just automatically throw the ball to him. They run some RPOs like we do, and if there’s an access throw, they are going to take it.

What they love to do is bait you, bait you and then double move you. Try to switch your leverage on you, and their scheme is very well thought out. They have answers to coverages, and their tight end is a heck of a player, too. You just go down the list. They’ve assembled a really talented roster."

"The one corner, Trey Amos, they got from Alabama. He started at Alabama and now transfers to Ole Miss. He is an All-SEC player at Ole Miss, and maybe he’s the reason we lost our corner.

(Note: Wake Forest corner DaShawn Jones transferred to Alabama during the offseason)

They very intentionally built a very complete football team. It’ll be a great challenge for us. It really will. A high-level team and we’ve played them here before. We’ve played Clemson and Florida State and Notre Dame and I’d put them up there with any of them."

"I hope not. We scheduled this game, and I agreed to it, and when we did it, name, image wasn’t like this, and they were 4-8. So I’m like ‘Hell, yes, bring on Ole Miss.’ I have no one to blame but myself.

It’s a great challenge for our players. We want to be a ranked team, a nationally competitive team and to get this type of game early in the year to get challenged, we’ll come out of this game a better football team. Our guys are confident.

These games are great opportunities. You play the No. 5 team at home. Ole Miss is coming to Winston-Salem to play the Deacs. If you’re a competitor as a coach and player, you look forward to this challenge."