Around the Conference Table: ACC College Football 2025 - Week 2

Presented by Saucy Asian

Welcome back to Season 2 of Cal in the ACC. Let’s take a look at what our neighbors on the East Coast are doing.

James Madison at Louisville (Louisville wins 28-14)

TD_24 - A thoroughly unimpressive win from the Cardinals. They were under serious threat to lose this game until JMU's magic with 2 QB's (sound familiar?) ran out in a dramatic way.

Nick Kranz - The good news for Cal's hopes against the Cardinals is that Louisville's offense looked pretty mediocre - Miller Moss hit on one big play but was otherwise contained and took some bad sacks. The bad news is that Louisville's defense looked very disruptive, and I'm nervous about the ability of Cal's line to hold up.

Callie Wake - Either James Madison is really good, or Louisville is mid.

Ben - Watching this game made me hopeful for the rest of Cal's season.

Piotr T Le - JMU is a real team, one of the best G5s so I won't hold the score against the Cards too much. Isaac Brown, the RB, is going to be a problem for the ACC.

Bethune-Cookman at 5 Miami (Miami wins 45-3)

TD_24 - I heard Bethune-Cookman's band didn't make the trip? That's robbery in its finest form.

Callie Wake - Yeah okay whatever FCS team.

Ben - big whoop.

Piotr T Le - Miami did what they needed to do. Nothing much to say here.

Troy at 8 Clemson (Clemson wins 27-16)

TD_24 - The score reeks of bad win and that's exactly what it was. Why this was the case I'm not sure but being down two touchdowns at half after losing a heartbreaker at home was unsettling.

Callie Wake - Clemson is definitely overrated. Beating Troy by 11 after trailing in the 3rd is a result I was not expecting.

Ben - Clemson stormed back but I think got exposed quite a bit.

Piotr T Le - Clemson with a scare and a close shave against a mediocre G5 team. Questions about Klubnik continue, but like last year's Oregon where they struggled against Idaho I think this will pass for the Tigers as well.

Rex Volcano - If you’re gonna put 1-1 Clemson at 12th after this game, you have to rank Cal, like, 15th. Feels about right.

11 Illinois at Duke (Duke loses 19-45)

TD_24 - I figured Duke would put up a better performance but five turnovers is just never going to help your cause.

Nick Kranz - The analytical challenge here is to decide if the five turnovers Duke gave up that turned this one into a laugher are bad luck/random chance, or some kind of reflection of an inherent weakness of this Duke team.

Callie Wake - I think my shock at this score is likely an underestimation of how good Illinois is and an overestimation of good Duke is. Still, Duke did not look good in this game. At all.

Ben - I know Illinois is supposed to have a year, but I thought Duke was as well? This is going to play out interesting.

Piotr T Le - Duke shoots themselves in the foot so many times there are no feet left in Durham. Thus Monocco is very sad.

Rex Volcano - Duke is in Big Trouble if they lose at Tulane this weekend and drop to 1-2. Will be very interesting to monitor them over the next few weeks going into their game vs Cal to see if they rally, or if the wheels come off.

Jesse Miller-Gordon - Maybe Illinois is just that good, but this game made our matchup against Duke feel more gettable , while other teams made me feel just a tinge of fear.

East Texas A&M at 14 Florida State (Florida State wins 77-3)

TD_24 - Florida State has my attention.

Callie Wake - Yeah sure okay whatever FCS team.

Ben - yawn.

Rex Volcano - OK FSU, we get it. Not a dignified final scoreline, something like 35-3 is much classier.

Baylor at 17 SMU (SMU loses 45-48 in 2OT)

TD_24 - In all the ways that SMU looked invincible last year they look as vulernable this year. I'm not saying they won't be a good team but its not a hopeless affair.

Nick Kranz - I'm not going to bury SMU's defense because Baylor can move the ball on most anybody, but that side of the ball is looking pretty leaky for the Mustangs after allowing 601 total yards.

Callie Wake - SMU looked bad in this one. Couldn’t get anything going on offense, and their defense looked unimaginably weak. Kevin Jennings is still a fantastic QB, but it’s very obvious SMU has taken a step back this year.

Ben - WHAT. HOW (oh kickers). Well, again, Cal's schedule looks a bit easier.

Piotr T Le - SMU with a truly Big 12 level loss to the Baylor Bears. I don't think Cal has the firepower of Baylor so I wouldn't read anything into this for us. SMU on the flipside will likely have to take this year as a reload after their CFP run last year.

Rex Volcano - This one was WILD, great reminder of why you kinda have to tune in for any game featuring two Texas schools that really don’t like each other. Baylor’s QB is going Round 1.

Virginia at NC State (NC State wins 35-31)

TD_24 - I was ready to crown Virginia as my improved team of the season with a 10 point lead but then the defense puked on themselves in a game that got away from them.

Nick Kranz - Virginia probably should've won this game, but blew three scoring chances in the 4th quarter when trailing, including a really horrible pick from the otherwise excellent Chandler Morris to seal it.

Ben - And more difficult? Though NC State would wipe the floor here.

Piotr T Le - CJ Bailey is for real and Chad Morris ended the game with a "wtf you doing dog" throw. UVa looks very beatable for Cal but more data is needed, as always.

@RexVolcano - I’m just now discovering that Chandler Morris is Virginia’s QB?? Another really good, efficient game from NC State QB CJ Bailey, who is only 19 and not getting nearly enough hype.

Jesse Miller-Gordon - This game was a super fun shoot out, and is a great game for fans to review before those match ups. Lots of offensive fireworks, but both defenses might be gettable.

Central Michigan at Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh wins 45-17)

TD_24 - We still have no idea what Pitt is.

Callie Wake - As expected.

Ben - Go Pitt.

Rex Volcano - I haven’t seen a lot of Eli Holstein outside of last year’s Cal game - not a great first impression, but that was probably his worst game of the year, and not the first time Cal’s secondary made a good QB self-destruct. I want to watch more of them this year, though.

UConn at Syracuse (Syracuse wins 27-20 in OT)

TD_24 - Fran Brown making his team run sprints with everyone in the stands is such a funny visual.

Ben - You went to OT against UConn? The basketball school?

Piotr T Le - Rumor has it the Syracuse players are still running sprints.

Rex Volcano - Sorry to the good people of upstate NY but I wanted this one for Jim Mora. Oh well. Syracuse now gets to give their backups some cardio against Colgate, and their game against Clemson the weekend after is going to determine where their season goes from there.

Gardner-Webb at Georgia Tech (Georgia Tech wins 59-12)

TD_24 - On to next week.

Callie Wake - Sure whatever alright it’s an FCS school.

Ben - yawn.

Western Carolina at Wake Forest (Wake Forest wins 42-10)

TD_24 - Wake needs to get this schedule together.

Callie Wake - Yeah okay it’s an FCS team.

Ben - yawn.

Vanderbilt at Virginia Tech (Virginia Tech loses 20-44)

TD_24 - What I thought was the hottest seat at Virginia may actually be at VT. Getting ran into the ground by Vandy at home sets the Brent Pry era on life support for me, especially after the effort against South Carolina.

Nick Kranz - Tech ran 14 plays for 12 yards in the 2nd half, and I strongly suspect that reflects much more on Tech's offense than it does Vanderbilt's defense.

Callie Wake- This was an ugly game start to finish, but Vandy’s been reserving recently so I wouldn’t take this as a shocking upset.

Ben - Woah. Again, Cal's season looking easier and easier.

Piotr T Le - VTech is another victim of the Diego Pavia destruction tour. At the rate and style VTech has been losing Cal might face an interim HC at the helm.

Jesse Miller-Gordon - Our game against V Tech is rapidly becoming an expected win that we can be pissed about if the outcome doesn’t go Cal’s way

Boston College at Michigan State (Michigan State wins 42-40 2OT)

TD_24 - This game honestly made me a little bit uneasier about the Cal vs BC game. Virginia and BC look a step more difficult where as VT and Duke look more attainable.

Nick Kranz - BC letting Adrian Chiles throw for 8 yards/attempt and 4 TDs without any interceptions seems like a bad reflection on their pass defense, but they appear to have replaced Thomas Castellanos with a new QB (Dylan Lonergan) who might be just as good. BC is gonna be pointsy this year.

Callie Wake — Isn’t this the 3rd OT game this week for an ACC team?? Wild stuff. Despite losing, Boston College looks like they can hang with the big dogs at the top of the conference this year. Should be a rough game for Cal.

Ben - Excuse me what? I completely missed this? The path to 8 win Cal is much easier than I thought.

Piotr T Le - Go Sparty! Also Boston College has an offense?!

Rex Volcano - Doesn’t change my take that BC is going to be one of Cal’s toughest opponents.

Stanford at BYU (Stanford loses 3-27)

TD_24 - I pray Ben Gulbranson stays the starter this is so hilarious.

Nick Kranz - The "Stanford is the worst power conference team in the country" stat of the week: if you subtract interception return yardage from their total, the Cardinal averaged 1.9 yards per play when they dropped back to pass . . . and they decided to drop back to pass 35 times.

Callie Wake - Hahahahahaha Frank Reich just can’t win can he?

Ben - Glad Stanford got some exercise.

Lindsey Gailmard - This trouncing was hard to watch even for a Cal fan.

Piotr T Le - lol, lmao even. Stanford had a safety on a WR bubble screen and rumor has it Andrew Luck was on the sideline roaming around making sure they don't accidentally send 12 men on the field.

Rex Volcano - Stanford’s defense is *ok* sometimes, but I am really struggling to see how they overcome the QB situation. We are going to get some extremely funny pictures of Andrew Luck making faces this year, but it may get too sad to be funny fast.

Jesse Miller-Gordon - lol.

Any other thoughts?

Nick Kranz - After back-to-back humiliating defeats, UCLA hosts New Mexico on Friday night, and while they'll *probably* win, I cannot wait to sit back and relax after a long work week and root for the Lobos to put an 0-12 season on the table for the Judases from Westwood.

Callie Wake - The ACC loves free extra football this week, bunch of FCS wins all around, and SMU got upset by Baylor. Great sickos content.

UC Davis got crushed by Washington 70-10 or some ridiculous number like that. Go Aggies.

Rex Volcano - Would just briefly like to thank UCLA for doing all that. You’re doing great 👍.