Gio Lopez Torches Akron Vertically as Wake Forest Opens With a 38–16 Statement

Jake Dickert spent the offseason talking about pressure as privilege. Thursday night on the ACC Network, privilege looked like vertical explosives, a transfer quarterback who skipped the soft-landing phase, and a Winston-Salem crowd that got to exhale before the second quarter was even old.

Wake Forest opened 2026 with a 3816 win over Akron that doubled as a product launch. Gio Lopez the North Carolina transfer handed the keys after a winter of speculation — threw for 350 yards and three touchdowns on 21-of-32 passing. Carlos Hernandez turned five catches into 165 yards and a 78-yard dagger. Antonio Meeks added a 72-yard score. Kam Shanks got the party started from 27. Ty Clark III ran for 105 yards on seven carries like the edge was optional. The Demon Deacons piled up 559 total yards, zero turnovers, and exactly the kind of tape Dickert can send to every booster who spent January asking if Year Two would feel different than Year One.

Akron was competitive on the possession clock and irrelevant on the scoreboard until the garbage-time credits rolled. Quarters read Akron 0-3-0-13, Wake 10-18-3-7. The polite version of that box is “the Zips hung around late.” The accurate version is “Wake Forest was done with the competitive portion by halftime.”

The first half was a long-ball clinic disguised as a season opener

Shanks from 27 less than four minutes in — eight plays, 82 yards, tone set. Connor Calvert from 25 before the first quarter expired. Meeks from 72 early in the second. Another Calvert chip shot from 29. Then Hernandez from 78 after a short field, with a Steele Pizzella-to-W. Loerzel two-point conversion tacked on for style points. In the span of a Netflix episode it was 28–0 and Akron’s secondary had become a cautionary GIF.

Lopez was not dinking and dunking his way into a soft landing. He was hunting explosives. You did not need a spreadsheet for average depth of target — you could feel it every time Hernandez or Meeks cleared the second level and the Winston-Salem night air turned into a runway. Hernandez’s 33 yards per catch will live on the seasons early résumé. Meeks needed only three grabs to put 93 yards and a house call on the ledger. Shanks was the appetizer that proved the menu was real.

Akron finally answered with a 28-yard Michael Schramm field goal late in the half, which is the statistical equivalent of bringing a polite cough to a fireworks show. Halftime: 28–3. The only suspense left was whether Wake would keep the foot buried or start managing September like a team with a real schedule still loaded.

The second half was punctuation, then charity

Calvert’s 26-yarder early in the third made it 31–3 and quietly announced that the Deacs could also be boringly professional. Deuce Lawrence’s four-yard touchdown run early in the fourth pushed it to 38–3 and closed the professional portion of the broadcast.

Then Brayden Roggow entered for Akron and did what backups are supposed to do when the starter’s night has already been filed: pad the box and salvage a little dignity. Two late touchdown passes — two yards to E. Alexander, four to T. Myers (PAT missed) turned 38–3 into 38–16 and gave Joe Moorhead something to clip that was not exclusively Lopez highlighting receivers in gold helmets. Cibastian Broughton had been fine in the abstract (21-of-26 for 111, plus 82 rushing yards) and completely insufficient against an ACC defense that bent just enough to stay interested without ever looking threatened. Jordan Gant, expected to be a workhorse, finished with eight carries for 15 yards and never got unleashed into a game script. The Zips finished with 305 yards, one lost fumble, and the knowledge that Minnesota on the road later this month will not care about garbage-time touchdowns.

Wake’s only real self-own was discipline: 11 penalties for 115 yards. That is the kind of number that gets a Monday meeting scheduled even after a 22-point win. Dickert will love the explosives and hate the flags. Both can be true at once.

Stars, not just the box

Lopez is the headline because 350 and three with a clean sheet is how you announce a quarterback competition is over. He ran for 39 more. He did not throw a pick. He looked like a quarterback who transferred to throw the ball downfield, not to manage a committee.

Hernandez is the co-headline because 165 yards on five catches in a season opener is how receiving rooms get rearranged overnight. Meeks and Shanks made sure this was not a one-receiver show. Clark’s 105 on seven carries — including a 57-yard rip is the complementary piece that keeps defensive coordinators from loading the box to stop the deep ball. Lawrence’s touchdown was the closer. Calvert’s three makes from 25, 29, and 26 were the adult supervision (he missed from 38, because nobody is allowed a perfect night).

For Akron, Broughton’s dual-threat production was the bright spot that still lost by three scores. Roggow’s perfect 7-of-7 late was a footnote. Marcel Williams led the Zips with 38 receiving yards. That sentence should tell you everything about how the passing game traveled against Wake’s front seven and secondary.

What 38–16 actually means

For Wake Forest, this is the opener you draw up when you spent a year raising expectations and need the first Thursday to match the brochure. A year after going 9–4 and learning how to live with attention, Dickert’s group just dropped 559 yards on a MAC visitor and put three different receivers in the end zone through the air. Nobody hangs a banner for beating Akron. Everybody in the ACC just got a reminder that the Deacs can still cook vertically when the matchup invites it.

For Akron, it is a Week 1 road loss that will not define the Moorhead era — unless the explosive-play defense stays this porous against better companies. The Zips were not hopeless. They were simply outclassed every time Lopez decided the middle of the field was optional. The flight home is longer than the final margin suggests.

Thursday night Week 1 is supposed to be noise. Wake Forest made it a statement. Akron made it a measuring stick. The Demon Deacons are 1–0. The Zips are 0–1. And somewhere in Winston-Salem, the highlight package of Hernandez and Meeks sprinting untouched is already living rent-free in the group chats Dickert used to have to calm down.

Pressure, it turns out, really can look like privilege — especially when your new quarterback is throwing lasers and your skill players are turning catch-and-runs into track meets.