It’s that time of year again.

No, not Christmas. The annual football coaching carousel has begun with the FCS tournament underway and the FBS ending its regular season.

Legendary coaches step down, mediocre ones get fired, and upstart and successful guys move on to greener pastures. All of that and more has already occurred, despite there still being games this upcoming weekend.

While the situation involving Lane Kiffin, Ed Orgeron, and Steve Sarkisian at University of Southern California has caught the eyes of most football fans, there’s another intriguing situation just down the road here in North Carolina.

In Winston-Salem, Wake Forest University head coach Jim Grobe resigned on Dec. 2 after 13 years of leading the Demon Deacons. Wake had just posted its fifth consecutive losing season with a 4-8 mark and a sixth place finish in the ACC Atlantic division.

Grobe was 110-115-1 in his time at Wake Forest, and many thought he would be there for many years to come.

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So, was he pushed out the door or forced to resign? Possibly. Grobe, a former University of Virginia player and Ohio University head coach, is most well-known for the 2006 season in which he earned AP Coach of the Year honors while leading the Demon Deacons to an 11-3 record, the ACC Championship, and the Orange Bowl. Other than that, he only made a bowl game in four other years and never made the ACC Title game.

On the contrary, he led Wake Forest to more wins than any other coach in its history has. When announcing his resignation, Grobe made it clear that this decision was all his own.

Regardless of his record on the field, most praise Grobe for his attitude and personality off of it. For much of his tenure in Winston-Salem, most Wake fans and alumni viewed him with the highest possible regard. Thinking about Deacon football without Coach Grobe was a scary thought for fans, a reality they now have to face.

Coaching in a conference where most of the teams are coached by younger guys, the 61-year old Grobe brought something different to the table. Believe it or not, now with Grobe gone, the longest tenured ACC head coach is Virginia Tech University’s Frank Beamer, who is in his ninth year.

The next closest? Duke University’s David Cutcliffe, Clemson University’s Dabo Swinney, and Georgia Tech University’s Paul Johnson have each held their job for five years.

Even Wake athletic director Ron Wellman voiced a great respect for Grobe at the press conference announcing his resignation, saying that “This is a sad day for Wake Forest football,” and “Jim Grobe was a winning football coach, but he was a better man.”

Names that have surfaced as possible replacements include former University of Southern California interim coach Ed Orgeron, Michigan State University defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi, and even Ball State University head coach and former Elon University head coach Pete Lembo.

When asked about his future, Grobe, frankly, was vague. He said, “Once you’re a coach, you’re always a coach, and you want to keep coaching.”

Well, should Grobe want to coach again immediately, there just happens to be an opening just 50 miles east of Winston-Salem at Elon.