As the college football world follows the bizarre twists and turns of the alleged Michigan illegal signal-stealing investigation, wondering what the NCAA and the Big Ten will do, one person remains very curious: Dave Clawson. The Wake Forest coach has some additional questions, though, the biggest one being: Why has the NCAA jumped all over this and why did it apparently do and say nothing when it was tipped off to what became now known as the “WakeyLeaks” scandal, which victimized his program for three years and left the Deacon coaches in the dark that whole time?
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“WakeyLeaks” was one of the more bizarre scandals in a sport that has had its lion’s share. Tommy Elrod, a former Wake Forest quarterback, was an assistant coach for the Demon Deacons from 2003-2013. Clawson did not retain him on his staff when he arrived in Wake Forest for the 2014 season, and so Elrod became a Wake Forest team radio announcer — and the individual who leaked the Demon Deacons’ game plans to opponents. Clawson’s teams finished 3-9 and won only a single ACC game in each of his first two seasons. It wasn’t until 2016 when Clawson’s team broke through, going 7-6 and notching its first bowl win in eight seasons despite averaging 20.4 points per game — 119th out of 128 teams.
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It was also that season that an internal investigation revealed that Elrod had given the team’s game plans away.
As mind-blowing as that was for those in and around Wake Forest, a half-dozen years later, Clawson’s mind was really blown when he ran into an long-time coaching friend in Arizona at the Fiesta Bowl spring retreat in 2022.
That coach asked Clawson if anything ever happened with Elrod. Clawson was confused; despite the notoriety of “WakeyLeaks,” he hadn’t been aware that his friend had known about the scandal. But the coach told Clawson that he’d actually called the NCAA in 2014 after he got a call from someone he didn’t know; he was trying to give him Wake Forests’ game plans right before they played. It all seemed very fishy and really suspicious, the coach told Clawson.
“Did the NCAA ever get ahold of you?” he asked Clawson.
“Yeah,” Clawson replied, slowly. “Three years later.”
Clawson was incredulous as to why the NCAA didn’t alert his staff after the organization had been tipped off in 2014.
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“Maybe the NCAA didn’t feel like it constituted a rules violation. I don’t know,” he told The Athletic. “You’d think they’d have at least given us a heads up. We were compromised for three years. Those next three years could’ve been avoided.”
Like most coaches, Clawson has followed the Michigan storyline, and can empathize with their opponents. Some of it felt very familiar. He knew what it felt like to get “got” by live scouting; Elrod, after all, had access to his staff’s computers and practice film.
“I don’t know exactly what happened with Michigan or how it happened, but I know how we felt when we did find out (opponents had our stuff),” Clawson said. “You feel violated and cheated. You get really bitter.
“You wonder why is the NCAA involved in this, but didn’t get involved in our situation? This is a big deal because it’s Michigan, but it wasn’t a big deal when it was Wake Forest? Football is a physical, violent sport. It is a sport that kids can get hurt playing. To be compromised that much, it puts the health and well-being of the players at risk. The NCAA is supposed to be there for all of us, not just some of us.”
(Top photo of Dave Clawson: Lance King / Getty)
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