Wake Forest is fresh off a 9-win turnaround; Purdue is trying to prove 2-10 was rock bottom. Neither team wants to open 1-1.
Bush’s Picks
WAKEPUR
WAKEPUR
OverUnder
Best BetWake Forest
Wake Forest enters with real continuity — a coach who overachieved in year one and a portal quarterback with starting experience in a Power 4 conference. Purdue is still finding out who its best 22 are after a nearly total roster reset. Until Odom's overhaul shows up on tape, backing the more established program on the road makes sense.
Wake Forest
+Dickert delivered a 9-4 turnaround in year one
+Lopez has Power 4 starting experience already
−Lopez completed just 65.1% with 5 INTs at UNC
−Brand-new starting QB needs time to gel
Purdue
+Odom overhauled the roster with 32 portal additions
+Coaching staff kept continuity at OC and QB coach
−Coming off a 2-10, winless-in-Big Ten season
−Defense is mostly new faces with zero games together
Both sides get a tune-up game before this one — Wake Forest hosts Akron, Purdue hosts Indiana State — so by the time they meet in West Lafayette it'll be the first real measuring-stick game of the year for both programs. Kickoff is set for 11:00 AM ET.
Jake Dickert walked into Winston-Salem last year and immediately delivered a 9-4 season, a number nobody outside the building was predicting after Dave Clawson's exit. He did it by leaning on the transfer portal, and he's doing it again — Gio Lopez, a South Alabama product who spent 2025 at UNC, is the new QB1. Lopez threw for 1,747 yards with 10 touchdowns against 5 picks in Chapel Hill last season, solid but not spectacular, and he battled injuries down the stretch. Wake Forest is betting a change of scenery and a full offseason in Dickert's system gets the ceiling higher.
Show fees
11:00 AM CT
Spread
ML
Total
WAKE Wake Forest
PUR Purdue
Purdue's rebuild is a much steeper climb. Barry Odom's first year in West Lafayette produced a 2-10 record and a winless Big Ten slate — about as bleak as it gets for a Power 4 program. The response was a total teardown: 32 portal additions, split roughly evenly between both sides of the ball, with seven new defensive backs alone. At quarterback, Odom stayed the course with sophomore Ryan Browne instead of importing a portal arm, a vote of confidence that puts a lot of pressure on Browne to be markedly better than a team that couldn't buy a conference win a season ago.
