Wake Forest didn’t just beat SMU on Saturday. The Demon Deacons walked into Dallas and delivered the kind of statement that makes a committee rethink its homework.
Ranked outside the 12-team College Football Playoff field despite an 8-1 record, Wake Forest answered with a 49-7 demolition that was over before halftime. By the break, the Demon Deacons had already stacked up a 42-0 lead and turned the game into a runaway.
The first half was pure domination. Wake Forest scored touchdowns on six of its seven drives, and the defense kept piling on with two takeaways, a turnover on downs and a recovered kickoff. By the end of the day, Jake Dickert’s team had forced three turnovers and outgained SMU 535-275.
This wasn’t some one-off explosion, either. Wake Forest has now run up a 313-38 scoring margin over its last six games combined, a stretch that says plenty about how fast this team has been starting games and how thoroughly it has been finishing them.
Gio Lopez led the offense again, throwing for 201 yards and a touchdown while adding 34 rushing yards and two scores on the ground. As a team, Wake Forest piled up 286 rushing yards and held SMU to just 66 on the ground.
The Mustangs were overwhelmed from the opening snap, and Wake Forest made sure the committee saw it. The Demon Deacons had a record that was the same as or better than 10 of the 12 teams in the field, yet landed at No. 13 in last week’s rankings. After Saturday, that case got a lot louder heading into the third version of the rankings on Tuesday night.
In Other News...
Wake Forest Just Set Up A Massive Final Stretch In The ACC
Wake Forest took care of business in emphatic fashion against SMU, rolling to a 49-7 win that kept the Demon Deacons squarely in the ACC race. Gio Lopez handled the offense efficiently, throwing for 134 yards while adding two rushing touchdowns, and backup Steele Pizzella finished things off with a late scoring run as Wake Forest continued to build momentum at the right time.
With two regular-season games left, the path ahead is suddenly very real for the Demon Deacons. They have put themselves in position to reach the ACC Championship Game, and the next stretch will determine whether this surge turns into a title shot or just a strong finish to a promising season. [Read more 🡒]
Wake Forest Just Made Its CFP Case Impossible To Ignore
Wake Forest keeps stacking up the kind of wins that force people to pay attention, and the latest one was as convincing as any of them. The Demon Deacons rolled past SMU behind a blistering first half, building a lead so large that the rest of the afternoon became more about maintaining control than proving a point, and the result only added to a run that has turned them into one of the most efficient teams in the country.
The broader case is getting harder to dismiss. Wake Forest has now won six straight games by at least 24 points, sits near the top of several key statistical categories, and has positioned itself squarely in the ACC race with an eye on the championship game. The timing also comes with the program showing some stability off the field, after recent contract extensions for Jake Dickert and offensive coordinator Rob Ezell, leaving the Deacons with both momentum and a clear path to keep pushing their postseason profile higher. [Read more 🡒]
Wake Forest Just Forced A CFP Debate Nobody Can Ignore
A nationwide FAA ground stop caused by a mass communication outage turned Week 11 into a travel mess for college football teams, with delays, rerouted routines and at least one bizarre scene as Colorado State held a walkthrough on a tarmac. Most of the schedule still went on as planned, though Mississippi-Oklahoma was pushed to Sunday, and the chaos only added to a weekend already loaded with teams trying to sort out where they really stand.
Wake Forest was one of the teams that made the conversation harder to ignore, because its recent run has put it right in the middle of a broader debate about what kind of team deserves to be taken seriously in November. With Wisconsin and Northwestern also dealing with their own Week 11 issues, the Demon Deacons place in the picture feels less like a side note and more like part of the argument itself, even if the full answer is still waiting on what comes next. [Read more 🡒]