Five-time NBA champion Tim Duncan built a Hall of Fame career off making bank shots. 

“The Big Fundamental” was an apt nickname for the most frustratingly consistent player of all time. He rarely celebrated or cracked a smile. He rebounded at a high clip. He possessed otherworldly footwork and a devastating array of post-ups and baby hooks. 

Duncan became one of the greatest basketball players of all time by doing the right thing, every time. 

The 2026 Wake Forest team possesses many of the same qualities. The Demon Deacons operate with clinical efficiency and are relentlessly good at executing no matter the situation. 

At 8-1 with everything left to play for this season, Wake Forest should be taken seriously as a College Football Playoff contender and one of the best stories in the sport. 

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Perhaps the most interesting thing about this Wake Forest team is just how preposterous this season’s rise has been. 

Head coach Jake Dickert has been a head coach for only five seasons. He worked his way up the food chain the hard way, coaching in places like Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Mankato, Minnesota, and Pullman, Washington, before landing in Winston-Salem. 

Quarterback Gio Lopez was a relative nobody out of high school. He’s undersized, doesn’t have a cannon for an arm, and is at his third school in three years. Breakout star receiver Carlos Hernandez has a similar story, having followed Dickert from Washington State to Wake Forest. 

Offensive coordinator Rob Ezell is best known for his Nick Saban impression. Defensive coordinator Scottie Hazelton is well-traveled, but has probably never had a group as good as this one. 

Nothing about what’s transpired makes much sense. But maybe it doesn’t matter. 

Through nine games, the Demon Deacons have defied the odds at every turn. Wake Forest is 8-1, with the lone loss coming against Miami, in a game where the Demon Deacons outplayed the Hurricanes for three quarters. In the last five games, Wake Forest has outscored its opponents 264-31, a staggering indicator of just how lethal this team has become.

Out of nowhere, Wake Forest has one of the most efficient offenses in college football, a defense that gets off the field on critical downs, and a team that's punching above its weight in the ACC. The Demon Deacons are dreaming of another shot at big bad Miami and have their sights set on crashing the 2026 College Football Playoff party.

The Wake Forest offense is incredibly efficient and wreaks havoc on opposing defenses by stretching the field vertically.

Through nine games, the Demon Deacons have tallied 390 points, good for an average of 43.3 points per game, per NCAA.com. That makes the Demon Deacons the fourth-highest scoring offense in college football, right behind Miami, North Texas, and Oklahoma State. 

The advanced stats back up that ranking, with Wake Forest currently averaging 3.2 points per drive, 6.9 net yards per play, and a Play Success Percentage of 53.5%, all far above league average, per Hudl IQ.

Perhaps the most interesting part of Wake Forest’s high-scoring offense is how it attacks opponents. The Demon Deacons don’t have an NFL prospect quarterback or towering pass-catchers. Instead, they rely on speedy receivers and inventive passing concepts to slice teams open with their vertical passing game, all without turning the ball over at a high clip.  

Wake Forest averages 8.7 net yards per pass, about two yards per pass above the league average, per Hudl IQ. The Demon Deacons have been successful on 52.4% of all passes, have a 13.8% Chunk Play Percentage, and have a minuscule 2.2% Turnover Percentage, all far outperforming league average, per Hudl IQ. 

At the forefront of what the Demon Deacons do on the offensive side of the ball is Lopez, a six-foot-tall, left-handed precision instrument that obliterates opposing defenses with pristine timing and accuracy. 

This season, Lopez has been one of the most efficiently lethal quarterbacks in the sport. Despite his small stature, Lopez twists defenses into a pretzel with his dual-threat abilities. This season, he’s averaging 9.2 air yards per attempt and has a 12.2% QB Rush Percentage, both above league average, per Hudl IQ.

Ezell’s offense has capitalized on Lopez’s longball touch, with the signal-caller averaging a whopping 14 yards per completion and creating chunk pass plays on 25.7% of all completions, per Hudl IQ. 

It’s difficult for college offenses to be efficient and consistently create chunk plays, much less do both while not turning the ball over. Dickert and Ezell deserve kudos for their talent evaluation abilities and for building an offensive system that’s engineered to maximize the players on the roster.

With Ezell calling the shots and Lopez pulling the strings, Wake Forest has a dynamite offense that is giving every team on its schedule fits. 

The Wake Forest defense does two things at an extremely high clip: stop the run and limit chunk plays. 

Through nine games, the Demon Deacons’ defense is only allowing 3.9 yards per rush and pass chunk plays 6.9% of the time, both far better than league average, per Hudl IQ. 

Those efficiently dangerous numbers are strong on the surface. When you pair them alongside 1.5 points per drive and 4.9 net yards per play figures, the pieces start to come together. 

What makes this defense special is that it forces opposing offenses to take the scenic route to points with long, laborious marches down the field. This unit clamps down on the run, makes teams nickel and dime their way to first downs, and bets that teams can’t do that enough times to score consistently. Through nine games, that bet is paying off. 

The only game where this defensive ideology got truly tested was Week 3 against Miami, in a game where this unit gave up 24 first-half points, and the Demon Deacons fell into a three-score hole. The defense did, however, make some good adjustments at halftime and only allowed one touchdown over the final two quarters in a 33-20 loss to a fifth-ranked Hurricanes squad. 

This Saturday, the Wake Forest defense will face a worthy test against a high-flying SMU offense, led by high-octane quarterback Kevin Jennings. This matchup is by far the toughest remaining game of the regular season. If Hazelton’s group can limit Jennings’ downfield playmaking abilities, he might struggle to consistently take checkdowns and beat this defense down over four quarters. 

Tim Duncan was a Wake Forest basketball legend long before he won five NBA titles. In Winston-Salem, he built the bedrock of his career with pristine fundamentals and a great understanding of how to be frustratingly consistent. 

Jake Dickert’s team has done the same. This version of Wake Forest isn’t flashy or sexy, but it doesn’t have to be. 

The Demon Deacons are relentlessly good at doing the right thing at the right time, and because of it, they’re on the doorstep of the ACC title game and the school’s first-ever College Football Playoff appearance. 

College Football Week 11 is here, and the playoff race is getting tighter! With the latest College Football Playoff rankings in hand, we're making our picks for a weekend full of potential upsets, tricky road games, and major conference championship implications.

We take a closer look at USC vs Indiana, as Lincoln Riley and the Trojans look to make a statement against Curt Cignetti's Hoosiers. Then it's off to Tucson, where undefeated Utah faces a dangerous Arizona team looking for its signature win. Is this finally Noah Fifita's big moment? And in Baton Rouge, Texas takes on LSU in a matchup that has us asking a very important question: Are we falling for the LSU Trap all over again?

We also break down Wake Forest-SMU in a huge ACC showdown, Texas Tech-Oklahoma State in what could be a wild Big 12 shootout, and a loaded afternoon featuring Michigan-Oregon, Tennessee-Texas A&M, Missouri-Georgia, and Baylor-BYU. Plus, we've got some bold upset picks, our weekly Quadfathers viewing guide, and much more.

And don't forget Run the Board! Make your picks against the spread for a chance to win a $500 Crutchfield gift card courtesy of our friends at Newegg.

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