Wake Forest Demon Deacons 2026 Season Preview

Built on a Fragile Base

Jake Dickert's first year in Winston-Salem produced a 9-4 record and a 43-29 bowl win over Mississippi State, but the underlying numbers argue that record flattered the group as much as it reflected it. Wake Forest went 4-1 in one-score games and survived a -6 turnover margin over 13 games, two of the least repeatable ingredients in football, while bringing back just 17% of its production into 2026. The bowl trophy is real, but the margin for error that produced it is not built to last.

A Boom-or-Bust Rebuild

The 2025 numbers tell a strange story: Wake Forest had the 5th-most explosive offense in the country but ranked 112th in success rate and 113th in points per scoring opportunity, a violent mix of splash plays and stalled drives that a minus-6 turnover margin only made worse. Gio Lopez, projected to take over at quarterback after arriving from North Carolina, inherits an offense that already knows how to hit chunk plays and desperately needs to stop bleeding them on third down and in the red zone. The defense, meanwhile, is the quieter story worth trusting, a top-30 unit in yards allowed and tackles for loss that gives Jake Dickert's second season a real foundation while Lopez sorts out the rest.

Robby Ashford's 2,472 yards and every other snap of proven quarterback experience walked out the door, and Jake Dickert didn't wait around to see who'd claim it, going out and landing Gio Lopez from North Carolina to take the first-team reps into 2026. Lopez is the front-runner over returning arms Billy Johnson and Steele Pizzella and freshman additions Grant Lawless and Gannon Jones, but nothing is locked given none of them have thrown a college pass. Whoever wins the job inherits an offense that was explosive on its rare successes (5th nationally) but wildly inconsistent getting there, ranking 112th in success rate and 113th in points per scoring opportunity, so the bigger fix than the quarterback battle itself may be making Wake's good plays repeatable instead of spectacular outliers.

Demond Claiborne's 905 yards walk out the door, and no returning back comes close to covering it, Ty Clark III managed only 323 yards a year ago. That gap gets filled by imports rather than internal growth: Sawyer Seidl arrives from North Dakota off a 897-yard, 13-touchdown season, and KD Daniels adds another proven ball-carrier from Florida with 120 yards on his ledger. Seidl looks like the early down answer given his production track record, but Wake Forest is betting on transfer volume over continuity at a position that ran for just 156 yards a game in 2025.

Wake Forest lost five wideouts off last year's group and answered by raiding the portal for proven production rather than promise, landing Wondame Davis Jr. from UTEP (25 catches, 604 yards, 6 TD) and Drayden Dickmann from Rice (37 catches, 323 yards, 3 TD) to pair with Carlos Hernandez, the lone returning target with real volume at 40 catches for 611 yards and 3 TD. Antonio Meeks arrives from Louisville with 17 catches and 189 yards for depth, while Jack Foley, Zeek Jackson, Eli Potts, Bryce Kania and Hugh O'Brien return with next to nothing on their ledgers. The explosiveness that ranked 5th nationally in 2025 was built on names now gone, so Hernandez and the transfer duo have to recreate those big plays behind an offense that already struggled to convert opportunities into points at 113th nationally.

Eni Falayi's 21 catches walk out the door, and Wake Forest is betting California transfer Landon Morris can replace that production more than anyone already on campus, his 7 catches for 94 yards and 2 scores last season are modest but they're the most proven receiving numbers this group has outside of Kamrean Johnson's 11 grabs. Johnson becomes the returning security blanket in a room otherwise full of unproven names like Will Loerzel and Matthew Lusardi, while Dominick Barry, Brady Shust and Max Tillfeldt Retsler arrive with no stat history to lean on. This is a tight end room rebuilt on projection rather than production, and how quickly Morris and Johnson mesh will decide whether Wake's passing game keeps its 58th-ranked yardage pace or takes a step back.

Wake Forest allowed just 17 sacks a year ago while ranking 5th nationally in explosiveness, proof this line could pave lanes even when the whole picture wasn't pretty (a 38.4% success rate that sat 112th). Now nine linemen from that group are gone, so Jake Dickert is patching the room with juniors Devin McRae and Ja'Marion Kennedy as the elder holdovers alongside sophomores Clinton Richard and Jack Hines, plus a five-man signing class headlined by tackle Ryan Berger arriving from Oregon State. With no proven starting order to point to, the protection numbers were the strength in 2025, and Berger's transfer experience up front will be the swing factor in whether that pass protection holds while the run game tries to climb out of a 70th-ranked rushing attack.

Wake Forest's line was the engine of a defense that ranked 4th nationally in run-stuff rate and 8th in tackles for loss, and the two most disruptive pieces are both back. Langston Hardy (6.5 sacks, 14.5 TFL) and Gabe Kirschke (5 sacks, 9 TFL) anchor a rotation that only has to replace Nuer Gatkuoth and Jayden Loving, who combined for real snaps but not the top-end production Hardy and Kirschke already provide. With Dallas Afalava and Zach Lohavichan also back and a five-man class of three-star linemen adding depth rather than saving the day, Jake Dickert's front should keep pushing the pocket without missing a beat in 2026.

Aiden Hall's 73 tackles and 8 TFL anchor a group that helped Wake Forest post the No. 8 tackles-for-loss mark and No. 4 run-stuff rate nationally in 2025, but the departure of Dylan Hazen, who matched Hall's 73 tackles with 9 TFL, and Quincy Bryant's 57 tackles strips out most of that production. Frank Cusano returns with modest 45-tackle, 1.5-TFL numbers, so UAB transfer Tylan McNichols, who posted 39 tackles and 1.5 TFL last season, arrives as the piece most likely to plug the void alongside Hall right away. The rest of the reload is unproven by name, with Monroe Partin, Deuce Dyce and Buom Jock all needing to show they belong before this front seven can keep forcing negative plays at the same rate.

Davaughn Patterson anchors this group after a 80-tackle, 4-TFL season, and he returns alongside Braylon Johnson, Travon West, Deuce Blades II, Myles Turpin and Bernard Causey to a secondary that helped Wake Forest finish 26th in yards allowed and 10th in yards per play allowed in 2025. The departures of Karon Prunty and Lardarius Webb Jr. strip out two starters who combined for real tackle production, and Jake Dickert answers that by leaning on a five-man junior college and high school haul, headlined by safeties Mahamadou Siby and Isaac Nelson and corners AJ Marks, Trey Warren III and Brian Blades ll, none of whom have logged a college snap. With Patterson the only proven every-down piece, the passing defense's 46th-ranked yardage mark is the number to watch as those newcomers get thrown into the fire.

Connor Calvert made 18 of 22 field goals with a long of 50 last fall, and his return gives Wake Forest the one settled piece of this unit heading into 2026. The bigger swing is at punter, where Cal Joseph and his 38.1-yard average are gone, leaving Ethan Hyams and Jack Ploszay to sort out who takes over that job with no prior punting numbers between them. Calvert's leg buys stability the rest of the kicking game does not have right now.

Wholesale Reload

Wake Forest rode a 9-4 season and now has to replace nearly everything that produced it, starting under center where Gio Lopez, a North Carolina transfer with no prior stat line on record, is projected to take over for Robby Ashford. The skill-position hit is real: Demond Claiborne and a string of departed receivers (Chris Barnes, Sterling Berkhalter, Sawyer Racanelli, Micah Mays Jr.) all cleared out, and Jake Dickert restocked with volume rather than star power, importing Sawyer Seidl and KD Daniels at running back plus a wave of 3-star wideouts in Wondame Davis Jr., Drayden Dickmann and Antonio Meeks. With 24 transfers in against a 39th-ranked class, this roster's 2026 identity gets built almost entirely through the portal, and how fast Lopez and that new receiver room mesh will decide whether last year's record was a floor or a ceiling.

Gio Lopez

Wake Forest handed the offense to Gio Lopez, a North Carolina transfer with no prior statistics on file, to replace Robby Ashford's 2472 yards and 12 touchdowns, and that blind bet decides the season more than anything on the roster. Lopez gets a real cushion in Sawyer Seidl, who ran for 897 yards and 13 touchdowns at North Dakota, and Carlos Hernandez back at receiver off a 611-yard year, but if the new quarterback cannot push the ball downfield those two weapons only mask so much.

Money on Dickert

Jake Dickert's first year in Winston-Salem paid off for anyone laying money on his team, and the profile points to more of the same rather than regression. Wake covered at a 69% clip overall, but the real signal is how the Deacons handled adversity and quality: a perfect 4-0 against the spread the week after a loss and a 2-0 mark against ranked opponents. A home favorite, Wake covered 75% of the time, the kind of steady, bettor-friendly identity that does not just vanish with a new season.