SMU vs Wake Forest: A Top-25 Game at Ford Stadium Headlines the Metroplex's College Saturday
No. 25 SMU (7-2) hosts No. 11 Wake Forest (8-1) at 11 a.m. Saturday at Ford Stadium on ESPN - homecoming, senior day, and a one-point game on paper between two of the ACC's most explosive offenses. Across the Metroplex, TCU hosts Kansas State at noon in Fort Worth.
DALLAS - The biggest college game in Texas this weekend is in University Park. No. 25 SMU hosts No. 11 Wake Forest at Ford Stadium on Saturday at 11 a.m. CT on ESPN, a top-25 matchup with the ACC race running straight through it: Wake Forest (8-1, 5-1 ACC) sits alone in second place in the conference, and SMU (7-2, 5-2) can pull level with a win on homecoming and senior day - the 'Wear Blue' game, as the school bills it.
The quarterbacks headline it. SMU's Kevin Jennings comes in off a 350-yard, four-touchdown Friday against Virginia Tech - a 51-28 win that moved him to 16-1 as a starter at home - with a season line of 209 completions in 283 attempts for 2,764 yards, 25 touchdowns and six interceptions. Wake Forest's Gio Lopez is the week's question: held out of the Demon Deacons' 77-0 shutout of Merrimack with a lower-body injury, he was the name the ACC's first availability report, released Wednesday, centered on. The betting line treats the game as a coin flip with a home edge: SMU by 1.5, with a total of 61.5 between two of the conference's most explosive offenses.
There is a score to settle, and it is one point wide. Wake Forest won the last meeting 13-12 in Winston-Salem last season - SMU's first ACC regular-season loss, decided on a last-second field goal. SMU still leads the short series 3-1, and its conference body of work is the league's best since arrival: 19-4 in ACC play since joining in 2024, the most wins by any ACC team in that span, SMU Athletics notes. Radio for Saturday is KTCK, 96.7 FM and 1310 AM.
The Metroplex gets a doubleheader. An hour after SMU kicks off, TCU hosts Kansas State at Amon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth (noon CT, ESPNU): Kansas State arrives having lost three in a row and winless on the road, and the Week 11 picks coverage read by this desk makes TCU a 27-17 pick at home. Two ranked-or-relevant home games, two stadiums, one Saturday - SMU's final files within 45 minutes of its buzzer-to-buzzer finish, and TCU's follows from Fort Worth.
