SMU’s late-season runway gets a major test Saturday in Dallas, where the Mustangs meet No. 13 Wake Forest in an ACC matchup with College Football Playoff implications hanging over both sidelines.
Wake Forest enters at 8-1 overall and 5-1 in league play, sitting in position for a possible rematch with No. 7 Miami in the conference championship game.
SMU, meanwhile, is 7-2 and 5-2, and its path is narrower: the Mustangs need to win out and get help from other ACC teams to keep their league title hopes alive. Wake Forest still has three conference games left.
SMU has two ACC games remaining, plus a road trip to No. 5 Notre Dame on Nov.
The Demon Deacons arrive in Dallas coming off a runaway 77-0 home win over Merrimack on Nov. 7.
In that game, backup quarterback Steele Pizzella piled up 495 combined passing and rushing yards in just one half, becoming the first FBS quarterback this season to throw for more than 400 yards and three touchdowns in a half. Pizzella was making his first college start with Gio Lopez sidelined by a knee injury.
Lopez is being worked back in and is expected to be available against SMU.
“We're excited about getting (Lopez) back into practice,” Wake Forest coach Jake Dickert said. “It'll be in a big fashion but more limited than every rep. But we'll build that up all the way through the week, and I think he'll be ready to go.”
Wake Forest has won six in a row since its only loss of the season, a 33-20 home defeat to Miami on Sept. 12. Over that stretch, the Demon Deacons have outscored opponents 294-58 and have given up more than 14 points only once.
“I'll say it every week: there's a clear path (to the CFP), Dickert said. “There are no style points this time of year, it's just winning and losing.
Our guys just need to stay in the present. We've got to understand a little bit of what's at stake, but also (realize) what it takes, consistently, to finish November the way we all want to.”
SMU comes in after a 51-28 home win over Virginia Tech on Nov. 6, a response to its 30-27 loss at Syracuse on Oct. 31.
Kevin Jennings threw for 350 yards and four touchdowns against the Hokies, with SMU scoring 24 straight points starting late in the second quarter, building a 30-point cushion and then surviving a late Virginia Tech push. Yamir Knight was Jennings’ favorite target, catching six passes for 103 yards and three touchdowns.
The Mustangs have been perfect in ACC home games since joining the league for the 2025 season, going 12-0. Their closing stretch - Wake Forest, at No. 5 Notre Dame and at Stanford - is the one coach Rhett Lashlee described as “the most difficult of the year.”
“It's November -- there's an old college football saying, ‘people remember November,'" Lashlee explained. “It's true. We just talked about, ‘guys, the time's now.'
“We've done a lot of good things this year, but we have not played our best game. So time's kind of now.
There's no more time to think about it. You've got to respond after wins too, right?
I mean, we know what's in front of us.”
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