Miami at Wake Forest
Miami (#5, 2‑0) travels to Wake Forest (2‑0), with Miami favored by 21. The model gives Miami a 82% shot.
How they got here
Last two games
Miami · 2-0
Picked #10 in the preseason · now #7 — about right.
Two straight wins — but still hunting a ranked opponent.
W 77–7 vs Florida A&M #219 of 669
won by 70 as a 59.5-point favorite
W 45–6 @ Stanford #93 of 669
won by 39 as a 24.5-point favorite
What’s at stake
Miami
- Miami sits at 63% to make the CFP field — 68% with a win here, 48% with a loss.
- Miami is coming off a 70-point win.
Wake Forest
- Wake Forest sits at 2% to make the CFP field — 4% with a win here, 1% with a loss.
- Jake Dickert is ahead of Dave Clawson’s year-2 pace (2-0 vs. 1-1) — a win tonight widens the gap, a loss narrows it.
The series
Miami leads the series 9-3
12 meetings since 1928 · Miami has won the last 8
- 2024Miami 42–14
- 2013Miami 24–21
- 2009Miami 28–27
- 2008Miami 16–10
- 2005Miami 47–17
Face-off
What each fanbase carries into this one.
Miami
The chip · vs the national mediaFans here believe the take that 'The U' is nostalgia — that the swagger died with the 80s and 90s and Miami has coasted on old highlights for twenty years. The 2025 run was the program's argument that the chip is back; the loss left it unsettled.
What this game touches
The 2025 title game — six points, at home, from The U being back. Miami reached its first national-championship game since 2001 — at Hard Rock Stadium, its own building — and lost 27-21 to undefeated Indiana, an interception at the Hoosiers' 6 with 44 seconds left ending it. The closest The U has come to all the way back, and the cruelest.
Wake Forest
The chip · vs the national mediaWake fans are used to being the team analysts forget to mention and the campus visitors can't find. They say being overlooked is a feature — the Deacons recruit the players everyone else passed on and develop them into the picture nobody saw coming.
What this game touches
The fear the magic walked out the door with Clawson. Dave Clawson built a decade of development and bowl trips, then stepped away after 2024 — and Winston-Salem braced for the slide that usually follows when a small program loses the coach who made it work. Whether the model was Clawson or the place was the live question entering 2025.
Best players
Miami
- Malachi Toney (WR) · 330 receiving yards — Heisman odds: 5th (+1000)
- Darian Mensah (QB) · 653 passing yards — Heisman odds: 1st (+450)
- Javian Mallory (RB) · 173 rushing yards
Wake Forest
- Carlos Hernandez (WR) · 253 receiving yards
- Vincent Firenze (LB) · 20 tackles
- Braylon Johnson (DB) · 16 tackles
The line, and the room
Miami fans are feeling it more than most fanbases this week (60th percentile) — the mood matches the numbers.
- Model · 18%
- Market · 5%
- Wake Forest fans · 61st
- Miami fans · 60th
Home +21 · O/U 55
Conditions
96°F · 2 mph wind
Wake Forest is worth +1.4 points (±4.3) more at home than on the road since 2018 — bottom tenth of FBS, 8th percentile.
55% at home, 50% on the road against FBS opponents (24–20 home, 21–21 away).
Our model gives every stadium the same flat 2.3-point home edge (why); the books use about 3. Against the closing line this stadium reads -2.4 at home vs. away over 73 games — inside the ±7.2 noise, so the flat number is the honest one here.
Night kickoff — historically worth about half a point more to the home side against the number, and not much more than that. The visitors travel about 703 miles to get here.
Recent games
Wake Forest
- Wk 1Wvs Akron38-16
- Wk 2Wat Purdue38-36
Miami
- Wk 1Wat Stanford45-6
- Wk 2Wvs Florida A&M77-7
Trajectory
The market
Book hold: 5.0%
Conference standings
- Wake Forest#60-0
- Miami#21-0