Around the Conference Table: ACC College Football 2026 - Week 3

Welcome back to Season 3 of Cal in the ACC. Let’s take a look at what our neighbors on the East Coast are doing.

Syracuse - Pitt (Pitt wins 27-13)

Piotr T Le - The Cal win against 'Cuse looks worse right now with 'Cuse likely facing a bowl-less season. Pitt also looked more like we expected to look throughout the season. A good defense and an inconsistent offense.

Callie Wake - Kinda felt bad for Syracuse while watching this game. Angeli still looks shaken after the Kingston Lopa hat trick the week before, might be because they played the other blue & yellow wearing team with a script logo immediately after us. Either way, Angeli has not performed to the level pre-season analysts were billing him to play at, but his backup Odom looked pretty impressive. Fran & his team need to work on discipline for the rest of the season. 200-250 cumulative yards in penalties across week 2 & 3 were easily a major factor in their losses to Cal and Pitt. I’d even argue if they cleaned that up, they would’ve won against us and it would’ve been a toss-up with Pitt.

Christopher Helling - Syracuse played with a stubbornly run-heavy strategy on offense, even though they kept running into a wall with the Pitt defensive line. Eventually they had to throw it, and although QB Steve Angeli had a couple good throws, he also had a couple of awful ones that resulted in 2 INTs (one bad throw, one bad read). QB Steve Angeli was benched in the 4th quarter after throwing his second interception. RB Ahmad Miller starting having success late in the game on runs, and the offense was more functional when QB Amari Odom took over late in the 4th quarter. Pitt relied heavily on the defense, and QB Mason Heintschel did not look very good throwing the ball (10/23, 123 yards, 0 TD, 1 INT) but he came up with a couple big plays (3rd down conversions) when they needed it.

5 Miami - Wake Forest (Miami wins 33-20)

Piotr T Le - Miami kept Wake Forest around and nearly found out why you need to kill a Dickert coached team early and not let them hang around. Also Malachi Toney is inevitable with Mensah at QB.

Callie Wake - This game had no business being as close as it was, but save a timeline altering disaster, the Hurricanes are definitely going to be in the playoffs. So a win is a win I guess.

Christopher Helling - WR Malachi Toney again tore through the secondary, with over 100 receiving yards in the first half (111 of his 114 receiving yards). He seems to have got hurt on a play late in the first half, and played limited snaps throughout the second half, mainly appearing on 3rd downs, but was relatively a non-factor in the second half. QB Darian Mensah threw an ACC record 24-straight completions (FBS record is 26), which was impressive in the first half as Miami jumped out to a 24-7 lead (would have probably been 4 TDs for 28 points if not for clock mismanagement by Cristobal) and a 31-7 lead by the 3rd quarter, but after a while it seemed like Mensah was playing scared to keep his completion streak alive (ended 30/34 but with just 220 yards and 3 TDs, but only 27 passing yards and 75 total yards for Miami in the 2nd half). Miami threw a ridiculous number of safety and nickel blitzes at QB Gio Lopez for immediate pressure, and WF couldn’t seem to stop it (so Miami kept doing it), forcing early and bad throws on critical downs. WF WR Jack Foley seemingly came out of nowhere for a big game, with 6 catches for 120 yards (including a 49-yard catch), and big plays by Foley and some nice throws by QB Gio Lopez kept WF hanging around. QB Gio Lopez also had plenty of opportunities to run the ball and chose not to, so perhaps a mobility issue/injury, or he’s trying to do more as a pocket passer, since he also used his legs to escape a number of sacks.

Florida State - 10 Alabama (Florida State loses 36-50)

Piotr T Le - KdB was saved by the thunder delay and the fact that his QB is a legit threat through the air and on the ground.

Callie Wake - Redemption for Bama after that embarrassing game a year ago. Gotta hand it to FSU though, they were not an easy team to put away.

Christopher Helling - The Alabama-FSU series is so interesting to me, because it shows that FSU absolutely does have the talent to compete with the best of them if the motivation and coaching are there. Luckily… they aren't. Well, I'm not sold on Ashton Daniels though-- indiscriminately throwing it deep down the field works a lot more often than it should when you have NFL talent at wide receiver, but Alabama caught on by the second half. Further, the Alabama offense wore FSU down by the second half, and FSU was missing tackles all over the field. FSU is really not that far from competing for the top of the ACC again, but I won't miss them.

16 SMU - 23 Louisville (Louisville wins 41-31)

Piotr T Le - Brohm knows his QB and looks like he found a guy who is willing to put his shoulder down and fight for yards. I bet there are some folks at Ohio State that wonder if they should've kept Kienholz.

SMU has a known quantity at QB: Jennings giveth, Jennings taketh. Explosive athlete but good for a turnover at least once a game. Also Kendrick Raphael sighting!

Callie Wake - Didn’t watch this one, but it was definitely a toss up. What do both teams have in common? They lost to Cal last year lol.

Christopher Helling - This was a chippy game, a lot of personal fouls (110 yards of penalties for Louisville, 82 for SMU). Both RBs had huge games, both teams had offensive lines that blocked really well and defensive lines that couldn’t slow the run game, but likely because of having similar dynamic dual-threat QBs that kept creating plays with their feet or buying time or escaping sacks, etc. Both teams are very similar and this was a back and forth game the entire way, but SMU got too tricky on a 4th down instead of relying on their regular offense which was already working, and that was the first defensive stop Louisville got (the game previously had something like 7 lead change and 5 lead changes in the 4th quarter), and then Louisville again scored an immediate TD to go up by 10. QB Kevin Jennings tried to play hero-ball a bit to try and make a comeback, but had a critical forced fumble from a goal line hit and had a desperation throw to the small slot WR Yamir Knight robbed by the bigger safety for a game-sealing INT.

West Virginia - 25 Virginia (Virginia loses 27-38)

Piotr T Le - Uff, did not expect this result considering the way UVa played up to this point. WVU ran the OG Rich Rod playbook with the QB Michael Hawkins Jr. taking power reads down the UVa defense for 123 yards (and the RB Cam Cook adding his own 123 yards).

Callie Wake - Tough loss for Virginia. The Cavaliers looked solid at the start going up 14-7 at the end of the first quarter, but the Mountaineers owned the second quarter and the second half.

Christopher Helling - Virginia’s defensive line struggled as WVU ran the ball really well against them, even though WVU QB Michael Hawkins Jr wasn’t particularly good throwing the ball, but WVU kept getting yards on the ground. Conversely, QB Beau Pribula did not look very good throwing the ball, struggled to find open receivers, and UVA’s run game was missing after having a lot of success in their first two games. QB Beau Pribula faced a tougher defense and struggled-- I am not sold on Pribula yet, but a strong offensive line is still going to take Virginia far.

Mercer - Georgia Tech (Georgia Tech wins 44-11)

Callie Wake - Completely expected. No notes.

Christopher Helling - Mercer is probably a plus-FCS team, but if I were a GT fan, I probably wouldn't be happy with how competitive this game was for most of the game. Unrelated side notes: (1) It's hard to take a quarterback named "Pickles" seriously (although I still have a visceral reaction to "Mendoza"), and (2) I did enjoy the scorebug broke when Mercer blocked and returned a PAT for a score (which is worth 2 points).

North Carolina - Clemson (Clemson wins 28-20)

Piotr T Le - Tale of two halves with the thunder delay pushing the game back further and further. Clemson might've found their answer at QB with Tait Reynolds but their run defense remains a question.

UNC just matched the number of staff departures due to scandal/investigations (GM Lombardi, DC Nepo-Belichick) and their win count.

Callie Wake - Didn’t catch all of this one, but it was ugly for both Bill & Dabo. Tarheels kept it close until the final minute of the game when the Tigers were able to score a final touchdown and a game sealing interception with 30 seconds later. This bodes well for our game against Clemson on Friday.

Christopher Helling - Clemson was really bad in the first half, with Clemson’s only first half offense an 88-yard drive on the 2-min drill before half, which accounted for 88 of their 117 first half yards. Clemson also decided to settle for FGs from inside the 5 twice for really conservative play-calling. Clemson has struggled to run the ball (all season now), consistently putting themselves in 3rd and longs and struggling to keep drives alive as a result. Clemson threw so many screen passes and safe plays that UNC started cheating up against runs, and Clemson finally had a successful drive throwing it deep with QB Tait Reynolds. QB Billy Edwards Jr is not a great quarterback, throwing too hot and with not enough touch sometimes, and is inaccurate under pressure. Clemson outscored UNC 22-3 in the second half, and took over the game after the 2.5-hour weather delay in the middle of the 4th quarter, holding UNC to a FG, scoring a TD, a UNC turnover on downs, another TD to take the lead, and then an INT to win the game. UNC has a good run offense but their passing game is not good behind QB Billy Edwards Jr. Similarly, QB Tait Reynolds is the limiting factor on a team with some very talented receivers that keep getting open deep.

NC State - Vanderbilt (Vanderbilt wins 35-31)

Piotr T Le - Congratulations CJ Bailey, you are now immortalized in CFB lore.

Callie Wake - The game itself? An incredible battle. The ending? Embarrassing. Vandy got lucky this time.

Christopher Helling - There's nothing I can say here that hasn't already been said. It's really annoying how poorly the ACC does out of conference, and it's games like this. Congrats on finally running a play dumber than Mario Cristobal's refusal to kneel. Teams with the ball and the lead in the final 10 seconds were 1046-1 over the last 20 seasons, with the sole exception prior to this game being 2015 Michigan-MSU's “he has trouble with the snap.”

Maine - Boston College (Boston College wins 22-16)

Callie Wake - How the hell do you get into a rock fight with an FCS team???! The Black Bears aren’t even a good FCS team! They went .500 in the Coastal Atlantic last year and the only good team there is Rhode Island (who got blown out by UC Davis in the playoffs. Go Aggies)! Boston College’s offense (the 40 point favorite in this game) did not look promising. QB McKenzie looked bad out there, throwing just 173 yards and nearly doubling Maine’s season interception total. 173 total passing yards + 186 rushing yards would be a passable line against a FBS opponent, but not against an FCS team. Their defense at the very least pulled away 2 picks of their own, which resulted in 10 of their points. Golden Eagles appear to be suffering even worse than last year.

Christopher Helling - BC barely survived this one as 37.5-point favorites, but I guess that's the point of scheduling teams like Maine or Rutgers. BC really testing my "P4 won't lose to FCS nowadays" theory.

Piotr T Le - Maine Black Bears are a bad bad (250th in SP+) and yet the Boston College Eagles struggled to put them away. Rough.

Stanford - Duke (Stanford loses 7-35)

Piotr T Le - In the battle of Venture Capitalists and Management Consultants the masters of excel defeated the trust fund backed "risk takers" of the American economy.

Nate Sheppard is very very very good.

Callie Wake - Didn’t watch but hahahahahaha!

Christopher Helling - Stanford is a poor man's Duke. Duke runs the exact same offense, but... better. Stanford's tackling in this game was atrocious, but probably a good bit of that can be credited to Nate Sheppard and his inability to come down on first contact, as he's racked up an absurd 528 yards rushing in 3 games now.

Virginia Tech - Maryland (Virginia Tech wins 35-26)

Christopher H - VT played very efficient ball-control offense to keep the ball out of QB Malik Washington's hands, scoring TDs on 5 of their first 6 drives to jump out to a 35-14 lead, as Maryland had no answer for VT TE Luke Reynolds. They turtled afterwards though, and Maryland's offense found their rhythm running uptempo against a tired VT defense late in the game, but a bit too little too late (not to mention chasing points with failed 2-point conversions). QB Ethan Grunkemeyer showed some real gunslinger tendencies in this one, though I am not sure if this is a good idea or not yet.

Any other thoughts on the teams?

Callie Wake - Virginia Tech appears to be the toughest opponent on our schedule, but Clemson looks very very beatable.

North of Berkeley, UC Davis beat the brakes off of Stetson, and then kept hitting them. 45-7 Aggies.