It’s time to look at Wake Forest as an ACC contender

Wake Forest football is 4-1 after downing the once-unbeaten Florida State Seminoles. Can we now view the Demon Deacons as a true threat in the ACC?

History has not been overly kind to the Wake Forest football program, but it’s proven over the course of these last couple of years that history only matters so much when discussing the present.

The Deacs won 11 games last season, which is a very rare number to hit when considering their typical standards. But while such a run was one for the books, most of us assumed that we wouldn’t see another like it just a year later—yet here we are.

Wake Forest entered Saturday with a 3-1 record, coming off of a hurtful home loss to Clemson that reached two overtime periods. The Deacs had to put their emotions from that defeat on the back burner, though, as facing a 4-0 Florida State team in Tallahassee wasn’t going to be much softer of an obstacle to overcome.

The Seminoles had not managed to turn many heads with their quality of performance early on, but they were nonetheless unbeaten, ranked, and ready to take on whoever stood in their way.

Doak Campbell Stadium was packed as the Demon Deacons came in to take on one of their more hated rivals and, especially with FSU getting on the board first, it was looking like things could get dicey rather quickly.

However, the Seminoles did not stay in control for very long.

Wake Forest football went on to score the next four touchdowns en route to a convincing 31-21 win. The victory brought the Deacs’ record up to 4-1 and should return them to top-20 status.

With such a promising win following up an excusable loss from the week prior, the question of whether or not Wake Forest is a threat in the ACC has to be asked—and the answer to said question is a resounding yes.

It is seemingly hard for some to remember that Wake is the ACC Atlantic’s defending champ, as the average college football fan probably shrugs it off as a fluke. The reasoning behind this is because, beyond that one shining moment, the 2021-22 Demon Deacons were seen as nothing more than a “decent” team.

But through it all, there was very little that justified leaving them out of the ACC title talks for this year, yet most found a reason to write them off anyway. To look like one of the conference’s strongest powers with both Clemson and Florida State already being out of the way definitely helps the Deacs in silencing those doubters—at least until further notice.

What awaits Wake Forest football on the horizon?

When looking at what all remains on Wake’s schedule, the only thing that stands as a true roadblock is a visit to North Carolina State, but even the Wolfpack just suffered a worse loss to Clemson than Wake did…so there’s that.

As for ACC hopefuls Syracuse and Duke, they could certainly be “trap games” (assuming that the coming weeks do not expose either of them as impostors). But, even with their potential, there is nothing about them today that concretely illustrates an ability to compete with the Demon Deacons.

All that leaves is some intimidating quarterback play, most notably on the behalf of Louisville’s Malik Cunningham and North Carolina’s Drake Maye. Both Cunningham’s dual-threat capabilities and Maye’s cannon of an arm could be problematic for Wake’s questionable defense later on down the road.

But again, very little about where those players’ teams sit today should raise much of an eyebrow when compared to Wake and what all it has accomplished so far; the Deacs should be seen as superior to them for as long as that statement holds true.

In short, none of us can promise a single thing when it comes to any of these teams, but if we had to, Wake Forest’s ACC title chances would have to be in the mix—and these past couple of Saturdays have beautifully showcased their validity.