Around the Conference Table: ACC College Football 2025 - Week 11

Presented by Headlands On Campus

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.

Wake Forest at 14 Virginia (Wake Forest wins 16-9)

Callie - Woke Forest, our brothers in communism, took down Virginia. Virginia played solid defense for the most part, however their offense played absolutely atrocious. UVA gave up 3 fumbles, and Wake’s defense kept UVA’s offense entirely out of the end zone. Frankly this is what Cal should’ve done to them last week. We knew they were beatable.

@RexVolcano - Despite them being 8-2, I fully stand by my initial assessment that 2025 Virginia is the most 7-5 team of all time. Very glad I erased my memories of how winnable that game was for Cal.

Jake Dickert is getting ACC coach of the year hype for having Wake Forest bowl eligible in Year 1 there, and he kinda deserves it? I’m not at all jealous *the glass I’m holding shatters in my hand*

Nick Kranz - There’s Virginia WITH Chandler Morris (pretty good, very lucky) and Virginia WITHOUT Chandler Morris (not very good, not very lucky) and for their sake they’d better hope he’s back and 100% before a visit to Duke next week that is functionally a title race elimination game.

Christopher H - Neither offense looked very good in this one, although in Virginia’s defense, they lost QB Chandler Morris in the 2nd quarter (not that they were doing much better before then). No offensive touchdowns in this one, and Virginia finally failed to win another close game despite two solid chances to at least tie it up late in the 4th quarter (forced fumble, questionable 4th down endzone fade with time running out). Impressive performance from the WF defensive line though, and bowl eligibility for Wake Forest in Jake Dickert’s first season.

Syracuse at 18 Miami (Miami wins 38-10)

Callie - Miami rights the ship after a miserable stumble last week. The pendulum swings back to the norm. Syracuse is absolutely miserable right now, and is so far winless in conference play.

@RexVolcano - Miami needed to win big to stay in the playoff race, and Syracuse rolled over and obliged. Keep an eye on Cuse-Boston College during rivalry week on 11/29 - those are your #16 and #17 teams in the ACC right now, and while I couldn’t get traction on my idea to relegate the loser to the Sun Belt, I think we do need to celebrate this special occasion somehow. Stay tuned.

Nick Kranz - This is what it looks like when you don’t have a quarterback.

Christopher H - Rickie Collins returned for Syracuse, not that it made much difference in this one. Syracuse was unsurprisingly completely outclassed in this one and had no pass offense to speak of. Miami’s defensive line lived in the Syracuse backfield, and Miami’s offense found plenty of holes in the Syracuse secondary, and even finished with a big man touchdown to the right tackle Francis Mauigoa.

SMU at Boston College (SMU wins 45-13)

Callie - Boston College (like Syracuse) is also having an absolutely miserable season. Almost feel sorry for them. Almost.

@RexVolcano - SMU has been 80-85% as good as they were last year, and that should get them to a very respectable bowl game. Boston College had too many pieces missing to ever get off the ground this season, and although I’m pretty sure their plan was to give Bill O’Brien another year regardless of how this one went, they can’t feel great about all this.

Nick Kranz - This is what it looks like when you’ve quit on a season.

Christopher H - SMU’s defensive line dominated, recording a season-high eight sacks against Boston College. While BC managed some early drives, their aggression on fourth down repeatedly stalled in the red zone against SMU’s bend but not break defense. Offensively, SMU broke loose for several big runs and exploited busted coverages for long passing plays. SMU Slot receiver Yamir Knight was the standout performer, taking advantage of BC’s focus on containing the outside receivers and finding space when safeties shifted their attention elsewhere. The game stayed competitive through the first half, but SMU gradually wore BC down and pulled away after halftime. Quarterback Kevin Jennings doesn’t look 100% running the ball, but he looked better than last week and will benefit from next week’s bye.

Duke at UConn (Duke loses 34-37)

Callie - Should we add UConn to the ACC? Many are asking. Also: DUKE WHAT HAPPENED?????? Duke had every opportunity to win this but much like UVA, pissed it all away via turnovers. 2 picks, and a game sealing fumble killed Duke. Outside of that, on paper both teams played similarly. Honestly this was a very confusing game for Duke. They should’ve won. But they didn’t. And thus, all coast chaos continues.

@RexVolcano - Jim Mora making UConn (UCONN?!?) respectable as a FBS independent in the year of our lord Twenty Twenty-Five is so absurd I can’t believe we aren’t talking about it more. I *could* also talk about the recurring theme of Cal opponents who I swore weren’t that good losing almost immediately after we play them, but I would rather not. Please respect my decision.

Nick Kranz - I’m laughing as I try to decide if Duke’s best win is over Clemson, Cal, or NC State. God, the ACC is funny. Dare I say funnier than the Pac-12 ever was? Nah, that’s blasphemy.

Christopher H - Jim Mora certainly had UConn fired up for this one, they played like this was a rivalry game (I have no idea if it is or not). The broadcast booth made a big deal about how Darian Mensah never throws interceptions, just for him to throw two in this one. Wasn’t terribly impressed with UConn’s QB Joe Fagnano in previous games I’ve seen (Syracuse, BC), but he played a gutsy game in this one, especially in the 4th quarter (fantastic TD pass followed by a gutsy run on a 2-point conversion).

Stanford at North Carolina (North Carolina wins 20-15)

Callie - Chapel Bill wins his second game! Everyone get the confetti, UNC beat Stanford!!!

@RexVolcano - Classic double trap game (Stanford caught looking ahead at the Big Game vs Cal, UNC caught looking ahead at Jordon Hudson’s grad school application deadlines). I’m glad that UNC is leveling out in a way that isn’t exactly dignified, but still guarantees Bill has to stay through at least the full offseason.

Nick Kranz - Stanford’s new QB, Elijah Brown, was actually pretty good when he got a pass off. 7.3 yards/attempt isn’t too shabby. The problem is that he took NINE sacks for negative 73 yards, and when you factor in those dropbacks Stanford’s passing game production drops to 4.4 yards/dropback. Those sacks were an impressive mix of bad blocking, horrible pocket awareness, and indecision about making a throw. I doubt this is something that gets fixed in two weeks, and Cal has a better secondary than North Carolina.

Christopher H - Another dominant performance by the UNC defensive line, with 9 sacks and 73 yards lost by QB Elijah Brown as a result. UNC had 6 total yards in the first quarter and the lead anyway thanks to the defense. Stanford had some decent inside runs but couldn’t really finish drives. Stanford couldn’t get much going on offense until the 4th quarter, but WR Caden High and WR CJ Williams made some big plays late to help their redshirt freshman quarterback out.

Florida State at Clemson (Clemson wins 24-10)

Callie - Clemson wins the mid off. Not much to write home about to be frank with you, this was expected. Florida State once again languishes at the bottom of the conference.

@RexVolcano - It’s a real shame Cal isn’t playing Florida State next year. The TV ratings Deion Sanders is gonna pull there in his debut season are going to be 2004 Barry Bonds-level juiced.

Nick Kranz - Florida State is 1-5 in ACC play, with an in-conference point differential of negative 3, which is truly sickos stuff. There’s no way they lose at home to Virginia Tech, is there?

Christopher H - Remember how both of these teams wanted to leave the ACC? FSU argued that ACC payouts should be based on wins, and then after a 2-10 season, decided that payouts should actually be based on TV viewership instead? Well, this one was on the ACCN, as WF @ UVA was on ESPN and CAL @ LOU was on ESPN2. Clemson won this one, I guess. Wouldn’t know; I didn’t watch it.

Any other thoughts?

Callie - All Coast Chaos absolutely locked in this week! What a week! Sadly there’s no real way we can make the ACC championship game, but it’s still a lot of fun.

In other news: UC Davis belts the Idaho Vandals 28-14, and goes to 7-2 on the season. No I do not want to talk about Davis last week thank you very much.

@RexVolcano - I have no opinion on any of the Big 10 outcomes that were decided at the last minute and may or may not have been very thrilling. That’s none of my business.

Nick Kranz - Cal’s path to finishing above Florida State, Clemson, and North Carolina in the ACC standings is pretty straight forward. Cal is already guaranteed to finish ahead of FSU. To finish ahead of Clemson, Cal must either win out, or win one game while Clemson loses to Louisville on the road next week. As for North Carolina, the magic number is two - the combination of Cal wins and/or UNC losses, since Cal holds the tie-breaker.

Pretty good odds that Cal will finish above all three teams that voted to keep the Bears out of the ACC.

Christopher H - I’m just happy Cal won a close game against a *good* opponent this time.