For most of the season, the ACC looked like a one-team playoff league, with Miami carrying the conference’s best shot at the College Football Playoff. Wake Forest just changed that conversation.
After hammering SMU 49-7 on Saturday, the Demon Deacons have pushed themselves into the thick of the CFP race and suddenly look like a real threat to join Miami in the 12-team field. In the final year of the expanded format, Wake Forest has built a resume that may not jump off the page at first glance, but the way it has handled opponents lately has forced the committee to pay attention.
The résumé starts with the obvious limitation: Wake Forest’s best win came against Louisville on Sept. 26, and the Demon Deacons also needed double-overtime to get past Purdue. They took their lone loss to No.
5 Miami in September. That’s not the kind of schedule that usually screams playoff contender.
But the results since then have been impossible to ignore. Since that loss to the Hurricanes on Sept. 18, Wake Forest has ripped off seven straight wins, and none of them have been close:
57-3 over Stanford
38-14 over NC State
41-7 over California
51-7 over Virginia
77-0 over Merrimack
49-7 over SMU
That run has already moved Wake Forest from No. 16 in the first CFP rankings in Week 10 to No. 13 in Week 11, and Saturday’s blowout gives the Demon Deacons another chance to climb when the next rankings come out. Even without a ranked opponent in that stretch, the committee has been watching the margin of victory pile up week after week.
Jake Dickert’s team has also won over the advanced metrics crowd by doing the same thing every week: overwhelming whoever is on the other sideline. If Wake Forest finishes this stretch hot, its body of work could become hard to dismiss, even without the kind of signature win that usually anchors a playoff case.
The bigger question now is what this means for the ACC as a whole. In 2024, the conference landed Clemson and SMU in the first 12-team playoff, with Clemson getting the No. 12 seed and SMU the No. 11 seed after a regular season that ended 11-1. In 2025, only ACC champion Miami made the field, earning the No. 10 seed.
This time around, Wake Forest may be the league’s best shot at a second bid. The path is there, but it is narrow.
With a lighter schedule, the Demon Deacons may need to keep winning in convincing fashion and could still need help from other at-large contenders like Tennessee, Texas Tech, Kentucky, BYU, LSU and more. An ACC Championship Game matchup with Miami could be the swing point, whether Wake Forest wins it or at least keeps it close enough to impress the committee.
For now, the Demon Deacons sit squarely on the bubble. If they keep steamrolling teams the way they have over the last two months, an unexpected playoff berth is very much on the table.
Wake Forest’s remaining regular-season schedule is straightforward:
Nov. 21 at Georgia Tech
Nov. 28 vs. Duke
The Yellow Jackets are 3-7 but come in off a win over Clemson, while Duke is 7-3 after falling to Miami on Saturday. Wake Forest has a clear shot to reach 11-1 and set up a conference title game against the Hurricanes.
Nothing is locked in yet. But after another lopsided win, Wake Forest has turned itself from a long shot into one of the most interesting teams in the playoff picture.
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 🡒]