Wake Forest’s climb in the ACC power rankings was the headline of the week, and it came with some real punch. After knocking off Louisville on the road, the Demon Deacons jumped six spots and landed at No. 2 in this week’s league-wide rankings, a massive rise for a team sitting at 3-1 overall and 1-1 in ACC play.
That leap makes even more sense when you look at the kind of win Wake just posted. Beating a ranked team on the road carries weight, and Jake Dickert has now done it twice in his two seasons in Winston-Salem.
The first came last year in Charlottesville against Virginia. This time, it was Louisville that got handled.
Wake’s path to 3-1 has been pretty clean outside of the Miami loss: a convincing opener against Akron, a double-overtime road win over Purdue, the defeat to then-No. 5 Miami, and then the victory over Louisville. That resume was enough to separate the Deacs from a tightly packed group near the top of the conference.
Miami stayed No. 1 in unanimous fashion, and the gap from the Hurricanes to the rest of the field remains massive. Wake’s average ranking checked in at 4.2, yet that was still good enough to edge into the No. 2 slot because the next few teams are stacked so closely together. There’s a five-team bottleneck from No. 2 through No. 6, with average rankings ranging from 4.2 to 5.1.
The rest of the league shuffled around behind them. Virginia Tech dropped four spots, while Stanford finally escaped the basement and moved up to No.
- Syracuse now sits at the very bottom, with Boston College and Georgia Tech just ahead of the Orange.
Wake is part of that top tier now, joined by SMU, Louisville, Pittsburgh, and Duke. Below that sits a crowded middle, then the bottom group that includes the teams fighting to climb out of the lower end of the rankings.
Each week, the editorial staff of ten writers ranks all 17 ACC teams individually, and those ballots are combined to produce the standings. This week’s list reflects just how tight the conference has become behind Miami, even as Wake Forest’s rise stands out above the rest.
Wake Forest will host Stanford on Saturday, October 3, at 12 pm ET on The ACC Network.
In Other News...
Jake Dickert Is Building Buzz Wisconsin Fans Can't Ignore
A strong opening month at Wake Forest has done more than get the Demon Deacons pointed in the right direction. It has also put Jake Dickert back on the radar beyond Winston-Salem, especially after the road win over No. 16 Louisville added another notable result to a 3-1 start.
Analysts and reporters have already begun mentioning Dickert as a coach to watch on the Crain & Cone podcast and at On3, pointing to both his work at Washington State and what he is doing now with Wake Forest. With eight games still left, he has plenty of time to keep building a rsum that could make him harder to ignore if future openings start to come into view. [Read more 🡒]
Stanford's Reset Feels Real But One Road Problem Still Looms
Stanfords first season under Tavita Pritchard has started to look more like a program trying to move forward than one simply surviving the week-to-week grind. The offense has become more functional, quarterback Davis Warren has settled in, and the changes on defense under coordinator Kris Richard have given the Cardinal a clearer identity. Even the work of linebacker Matt Rose has fit into that broader reset, with Stanford showing signs of a team that can at least stay in games instead of drifting through them.
Still, the road version of that progress is where the test gets real, and Wake Forest will have plenty of interest in how much of Stanfords growth travels. The Talking Trees Podcast breakdown pointed to genuine improvement, but also left open the question that matters most in a matchup like this: whether the Cardinal can carry that competence away from home and turn it into something more dependable when the setting changes. [Read more 🡒]
Stanford Faces An Early Test After Finally Showing Some Real Life
Wake Forest heads into Family Weekend at 3-1 and carrying a little more momentum after its upset of Louisville, a result that gave the Demon Deacons a much cleaner read on where they stand early in the season. Gio Lopez has helped steady the offense and Carlos Hernandez has been one of the more reliable targets, giving Wake enough balance to make this feel like more than just a good start on paper.
Stanford arrives with a different kind of urgency, trying to build off a conference win and finally show signs of a real climb under a new structure. The Cardinals have gotten a lift from their quarterback, while Tavita Pritchard and Andrew Luck are trying to steer the program through its transition period, which makes this trip a useful measuring stick for how far Stanford has come and how far it still has to go. [Read more 🡒]