No. 11 Wake Forest Leads SMU 42-0 at Halftime, Rolls 49-7 to Push Its Playoff Case

By The Arena Staff

DALLAS, Nov. 14, 2026 — Saturday morning on "College GameDay," three of the panel's pickers, Pat McAfee, Kirk Herbstreit and guest Ian Johnson, took SMU over Wake Forest, USA TODAY noted. By halftime in Dallas the scoreboard read 42-0.

Gio Lopez ran for two touchdowns and threw for another, and No. 11 Wake Forest flattened No. 25 SMU 49-7 for its seventh straight win, The Associated Press reported. The Demon Deacons are 9-1 and 6-1 in the ACC, and they handed the Mustangs (7-3, 5-3) their first conference loss at home. SMU had been 12-0 in ACC games at Gerald J. Ford Stadium, and this was the last home game of the season, on homecoming and Senior Day.

Wake did most of its damage on the downs that usually end drives. Ty Clark opened the scoring with a 27-yard touchdown on third-and-18, the first of four Wake first-half touchdowns on third down, according to the AP. Another score came after Jamar Searcy broke a 38-yard run on fourth-and-1. Carlos Hernandez added a 44-yard touchdown catch and finished with 94 receiving yards.

"We're not finished with them yet. We came for 60 minutes and they've got nowhere to hide," coach Jake Dickert said in his halftime interview on the Wake Forest radio network, according to Saturday Down South.

The second half was mostly a formality. SMU got its only touchdown in the third quarter, and Lopez, who threw for 201 yards, gave way to Steele Pizzella late in that quarter. Pizzella later ran for a 42-yard score. Wake outgained SMU 535-275 and ran for 286 yards, 77 of them by Clark, in a game between two of the top offenses in the country.

For SMU quarterback Kevin Jennings, the hometown quarterback the Mustangs had pushed for the Heisman Trophy, it was a rough way to leave Ford Stadium. He threw for 209 yards with a touchdown and an interception and fell to 16-2 as a home starter, but he had just 40 passing yards late in the first half with his team down 42. Coach Rhett Lashlee had been 27-4 at home, and his worst home loss before Saturday was by eight points, the AP noted. The 42-point margin is the worst loss of his tenure, home or away.

The run Wake is on is hard to wrap your head around. Counting last week's 77-0 win over FCS Merrimack, the Deacons scored 119 points in six quarters. They are the first team since Alabama in 2013 to score at least 20 points while shutting out its opponent in the first half of four straight games, by a combined 145-0, according to the AP. They are also the only FBS team with five road wins over power-conference opponents this season.

The College Football Playoff committee had Wake 13th this week, just outside the 12-team field. The school had given Dickert a contract extension two days before kickoff. "People are afraid of what they don't understand," he said after the first CFP rankings came out, according to USA TODAY. "And right now, they don't understand how Wake is doing this."

Wake Forest plays at Georgia Tech next Saturday. SMU goes to No. 5 Notre Dame, where its playoff hopes, already flickering, are close to gone.

Sourcing: The Associated Press, USA TODAY, SMU Athletics and Saturday Down South.