It was another wild week of college football action in the ACC. The Florida State Seminoles continued their incredibly disappointing season, getting run off the field by conference newcomer SMU to fall to 1-4 on the year.
FSU’s disaster season highlights our good, bad, and ugly recap for Week 5 of the ACC season.
Let’s start on a positive note:
The Good
The Pac-12 had a notorious history of cannibalization, where the mediocre to bad teams would routinely upset the league’s few legitimate contenders, often resulting in very little postseason success.
Stanford would have loved to continue that trend in the ACC, but Dabo Swinney and the Clemson Tigers did not give the Cardinal a chance, cruising to an easy 40-14 victory behind four touchdown passes from Cade Klubnik and a very strong defensive performance, which included picking off Ashton Daniels three times.
NC State beating Northern Illinois by just one touchdown typically wouldn’t register as a ‘good’ thing in the ACC, but considering the Wolfpack’s previous struggles, the absence of quarterback Grayson McCall, and NIU’s win over Notre Dame, this is a positive result for coach Dave Doeren’s squad.
The Bad
Wake Forest gave up 41 points to the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns, including 209 rushing yards and a pair of touchdowns, in a non conference loss to send the Demon Deacons to a 1-3 overall record. After beating NC A&T in Week 1, Wake Forest is 0-3 with losses to Virginia, Ole Miss (by 34) and now Louisiana. Yikes.
No Thomas Castellanos against a solid Western Kentucky team could have spelled disaster for Boston College, and while the Eagles did escape with a victory it was far from pretty. Backup QB Grayson James completed just 19 of 32 pass attempts for 168 yards, an average of 5.3 yards per reception, along with one touchdown and one interception. It’s unclear when Castellanos will be back, but the Eagles could really use him even at Virginia in Week 6.
The Ugly
The nightmare season for Mike Norvell and Florida State continues. The ‘Noles struggled on both sides of the ball against SMU, with quarterback DJ Uiagalelei throwing three interceptions and completing just 12 passes on 30 attempts.
Defensively the team gave up 28 points in the second half to a mediocre SMU offense, with Mustangs quarterback Kevin Jennings throwing for three touchdowns in the blowout win. FSU is now 1-4 on the season and 1-3 in league play, and Norvell’s seat is starting to warm.
A rivalry game between Duke and North Carolina once again has UNC coach Mack Brown squarely on the hot seat. The Tar Heels were up 17-0 at halftime but were outscored 21-3 in the second half to lose a second straight game.
Duke is now 5-0 and 1-0 in the ACC, while Carolina falls to 3-2 and could be nearing the end of part two of the Mack Brown era in Chapel Hill.