Wake Forest fans take out ad asking for coach's firing

Chris Chase, USA TODAY Sports | USATODAY

Detractors of Wake Forest basketball coach Jeff Bzdelik, of which there are many, can trot out any number of facts to support their case that the embattled coach should be fired at the end of the season and one did so in an advertisement that appeared in this week's edition of the student newspaper, the Old Gold & Black.

The ad, featuring the anti-Bzdelik hashtag #BuzzOut and the URL for FireBz.com, features a "greatest hits" of Bzdelik's woeful Wake Forest statistics, including a 10-39 ACC record and 4-24 record in February and March. (Those marks currently stand at 10-40 and 4-25).

Wake Forest Demon Deacons head coach Jeff Bzdelik (Photo: John Bazemore/AP)

One statistic that didn't make the copy is so mind-blowingly woeful that it almost defies belief: In road conference games at Colorado (his previous stop) and Wake Forest, Bzdelik's teams are 2-47.

Two wins, 47 losses.

That anti-Buzz website has a lot more numbers (my favorite: Bzdelik needs 84 straight wins to match the winning percentage of the fired coach he succeeded), but after 2-47, does it need them?

WXII reports that a Greensboro, N.C. man paid $260 for the advertisement. Since the ad had received national attention, that money should feel well spent.

Full disclosure: I'm a Wake graduate. When I watch Demon Deacons basketball, I irrationally turn on coaches and players at the first sign of struggle. Thankfully, most of the good folks in Winston-Salem aren't like me. They tend to be patient and optimistic. Even going into this year, when the ship had already hit the iceberg and was halfway submerged, the overall sense was that Bzdelik had the team going in the right direction.

Wins over N.C. State and Miami led to hope that the ship was no longer sinking. But there were too many bad losses to outweight the good ones. A lazy performance against Maryland on the night Chris Paul's jersey was retired seemed to be the final straw for the last holdouts.

Wake's is not a reactionary fan base. It will tolerate mediocrity, as long as there's a sense that it's leading to something better. The overall reaction to Bzdelik's tenure -- if there are supportive Wake fans out there, I haven't found them -- shows that even the calmest fans have a breaking point.