Around the Conference Table: ACC College Football 2025 - Week 3

Presented by Headlands On Campus

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.

NC State at Wake Forest (NC State wins 34-24)

Ben - Didn't watch the game, but box score looking shows a second half shutout for Dave Doeren and the Pack. Going to be very interesting to follow them the rest of the way. All too likely they'll be 6-0 in a few weeks heading to Notre Dame. NC State is going to be one to keep an eye on.

Jesse Miller-Gordon - More evidence that NC State goes pew-pew on offense but their defense leaves much to be desired.

Piotr T Le - Wake just blew the game unable to convert a non penalty 1st down for the entirety of the second half. How does one do that?!

TD_24 - I must admit I thought Wake Forest had this for a second. But less than 100 yards of offense in the second half is not a recipe for success! Really digging the CJ Bailey and Hollywood Smothers combo for the Wolfpack.

Christopher H - WF started this one off hot, but completely disappeared by the second half. I remember watching a whole lot of Robby Ashford before Cal played Auburn, and he looked like a new QB... until the second half, when everything fell apart. Credit to NCSU for keeping Demond Claiborne and the WF run game contained.

Colgate at Syracuse (Syracuse wins 66-24)

Ben - Unsurprised as typically combining toothpaste and orange juice makes for a horrible thing no one wants.

Piotr T Le - Syracuse beat a toothpaste brand. In other news, have you heard the good word of our new lord and savior Oski?

TD_24 - I think Syracuse will be a feisty team but ultimately probably 2 rungs below where they were last year.

Callie - Okay. FCS win.

18 South Florida at 5 Miami (Miami wins 49-12)

Ben - South Florida finishes the hard part of their schedule and looks a bit soft going forward? Is South Florida a playoff team?

Jesse Miller-Gordon - Miami is straight up good this year. They are what Clemson is supposed to be.

Nick Kranz - Lots of signs that Miami has figured things out on defense, though they have a real tough next three games.

Piotr T Le - Miami keeps on Miami-ng, very good win against a solid G5 team and a possible G5 CFP contestant.

Callie - I didn’t expect USF to win, but I expected they’d keep it close.

TD_24 - Alas the Magic had to run out at some point. Both years this games was flagged as an upset alert, both times the Canes rolled. Still think USF can be a decent team and Miami will be within a chance of the ACC title game.

12 Clemson at Georgia Tech (Georgia Tech wins 24-21)

Ben - Haynes King is going to drag Georgia Tech around this season? Or is Georgia Tech dragging around Haynes King?

Jesse Miller-Gordon - Brent Key is the idea, the concept, of an offensive line, distilled into a person. Haynes King is one of *those* college quarterbacks. It is nice to see a team seemingly will themselves into good standing in this day and age. Clemson had issues last week that they could paper over because they were playing Troy. Tech is a good team that will expose your flaws.

Nick Kranz - Haynes King is somehow both his own rock and his own hard place, and he and the Jackets have been every college football fan's 2nd favorite team for more than a year. Keep on smashing your head through a wall all the way to an ACC championship game, King.

Piotr T Le - Haynes King footballed so hard he nearly died on the field. Then again he might be part Sayian cause they, like him get stronger with every near death/death experience.

Callie - Clemson, those fraud alerts have been going off for a while, you gonna get that? Clemson? Hello? Clemson?? Georgia Tech looked strong in their.

TD_24 - I was concerned in the second half that GT was not moving the ball as well as they could have but some of that fire drill magic was up in the air.

Christopher H - Clemson got off to a rough start last year too, but turned it around by the end of the season to squeak into the playoffs... but I'm starting to think that Clemson isn't the team it used to be. It was an "upset" (2.5 points), sure, but kind of in the way that FSU was upset last year. GT QB Haynes King is difficult to stop and has no regard for his personal safety, so I think GT's future success rides on his health.

William & Mary at Virginia (Virginia wins 55-16)

Ben - yawn.

Callie - FCS win. Whatever.

TD_24 - Virginia doing what they need to do even if it’s not against anyone of note. 700 yards of offense…

SMU at Missouri State (SMU wins 28-10)

Ben - Hopefully the only Bears SMU beats this year.

Nick Kranz - Here's a weird stat: Missouri State had 19 first downs against SMU, and yet somehow went 0-13 combined on 3rd and 4th down conversion attempts. How is that even possible? Anyway, another game where SMU underwhelms relative to expectations, and their game against Cal is trending more and more towards toss up territory unless SMU can find a new gear.

Piotr T Le - SMU showing cracks against a team whose EA College Football 26 rating is so low it does not qualify for pension benefits. Not a good look for the Mustangs.

Callie - This is a good win for SMU. I know that they’re a winless C-USA team, but after a downward spiral out of the top 25, SMU really needed the morale boost. The offense and defense looked a little more cohesive this week, so I’m hoping they bounce back heading into conference play.

TD_24 - SMU looked SMbad in this game. I was watching this game when Missouri State was ahead 10-0 (the same MSU who lost to USC 73-13) and had a thought they could do it. The Mustangs are so vulnerable.

Christopher H - Not a great look for SMU. This is not the look of last year's playoff team.

Richmond at North Carolina (North Carolina wins 41-6)

Ben - Congrats to Belichick on righting the ship.

Jesse Miller-Gordon - I am glad that UNC has two games before they come to Berkeley that feature real opponents so we can get a temperature check on what this team is actually about.

Nick Kranz - Richmond is typically a pretty good FCS team, but much of this final margin was turnover related (including a defensive touchdown) so there's little here to make you change your mind about UNC.

Piotr T Le - Did you know that Richmond is home to one of the best art museums in the mid-Atlantic area? The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts has free admission and sports one of the largest Faberge Egg collections in the US... you're telling me they also have a football team?!

Callie - Sure. An FCS win.

TD_24 - We still haven’t learned much with the Tar Heels.

Old Dominion at Virginia Tech (Virginia Tech loses 26-45)

Ben - Early in the year I had this as a sure loss. Blacksburg. East Coast. At Night.

Still not totally convinced it's a win yet, but man...it's going to be right there for us to take huh.

Nick Kranz - So the equivalent for Cal would be trailing 45-13 in the 4th quarter against, like, Fresno State or something? Virginia Tech has thoroughly broken Kyron Drones, and as a result we now get to worry that Phillip Montgomery will somehow inspire a turnaround as interim head coach.

Piotr T Le - Please for the love of all that is holy, VTech please win at least 1 FBS game before we play y'all.

Callie - Good lord VTech looks bad, and they’re only going to get worse now that the portal is open. ODU didn’t just win, they dominated VTech so much that they fired their head coach week 3.

TD_24 - This was a funny game but unfortunately Brent Pry is no longer the HC. Please let VT not be winless when Cal plays them.

Christopher H - VT has shown flashes of competency in their first two matchups against decent teams, but that went out the window here. Their defense is a mess.

Duke at Tulane (Duke loses 27-34)

Ben - Excuse me?

Nick Kranz - Another somewhat misleading loss from Duke, as they outgain and out-first-down Tulane but lose on the road in part due to two missed field goals. Tulane used the legs of Jacob Retzlaff to great effect, so probably not a formula Cal can copy. When the Devils come down to Berkeley the game may well come down to how many mistakes Cal can force QB Darian Mensah into making.

Piotr T Le - Mensah comes back home to a chilly welcome. Tulane put's itself on the front foot for the CFP and Jon Sumrall is about to be the most popular man in the South-South East.

Callie - Duke what happened???? The Blue Devils (who I expected to be in the upper middle of the ACC) fumbled one. Tulane had control of this one from the start, scoring early and often with a record 4 rushing TD’s. Duke couldn’t stop the run, and missed two field goals that would’ve probably kept them more in the game.

TD_24 - Darian Mensah leaving Tulane for Duke NIL only to go back there and lose is not lost on me with the irony. Devils should still be a pesky team.

Christopher H - Tulane's a pretty underrated team, and Duke had no answer for BYU transfer QB Jake Retzlaff running the ball, which was surprising to me because Duke's defensive line had previously been a strength this season.

Boston College at Stanford (Boston College loses 20-30)

Ben - EXCUSE ME?

Jesse Miller-Gordon - Still early enough in the season to wonder if this is about one team being good or the other team being much worse than everyone assumed.

Nick Kranz - With just a couple minutes left in the 1st half, BC led by 11 points and was poised to go up 18. They blew a zone read snap exchange for a fumble turnover, gave up a long TD when there was no safety help behind a pretty routine catch, then threw an awful pick 6. A disastrous few minutes that flipped what appeared to be a routine win into a horrible upset loss.

I still think Stanford is turbo bad, if anything this just makes me feel less nervous about Cal's BC trip . . . though as BC demonstrated in Stanford stadium, cross country road trips are freaky things.

Piotr T Le - On one hand depriving us of a 0-12 Stanford watch is saddening, but on the flip-side, Stanford has an FBS win already thus the Wilcox curse against bad teams has weakened.

Callie - Huh??????? Boston College what happened??? Oh, your defense couldn’t stop the run, and your offense couldn’t get anyone going in the first… third… and fourth quarters. No seriously they score all their points in the second quarter and then just… stopped doing that. Man what a weird game.

TD_24 - Stanford voodoo I think it still alive. BC is a capable but volatile team so I don’t know what version Cal will see.

Christopher H - I want to poke fun, but this just makes Cal @ BC feel like a trap game.

Any other thoughts?

Nick Kranz - UCLA is Cal, if Cal never had an internal come-to-Jesus moment where they realized that continued administrative indifference and an inability to take revenue sports seriously could permanently harm their athletic program. Also, UCLA is Cal with better geography and demographics so that the Big-10 was willing to say yes despite all evidence that they suck.

Piotr T Le - Cal football is on 10-2 watch, the ingredients to a historic season are here, but are yet to be assembled. Also: watch K-Pop Demon Hunters, it's a bop.

Callie - Duke, Boston College, and Virginia Tech all had pitiful loses this week. What the heck happened to the ACC?

UC Davis had a bye this week. Go Aggies!

TD_24 - These ACC opponents for Cal…..I don’t want to be the guy that says it

Christopher H - If you want to catch one of Cal's OOC opponents for next year, I have to say that UCLA has been a lot of fun to watch.