The ACC picture got a little sharper in Week 4, even with North Carolina sitting idle on its final bye of the season. The Tar Heels used the week off after a frustrating loss to Clemson and before a matchup with highly ranked Notre Dame, though there’s skepticism that the extra time will be enough to spring a surprise.
Around the league, several teams kept stacking wins, while a few others kept making the middle of the conference look crowded and confusing.
Miami still sits alone at the top after rolling past Central Michigan 52-3. The Hurricanes had already survived a tighter-than-expected test against Wake Forest, and that result looks better now that the Demon Deacons have kept winning.
Duke stayed perfect too, hammering William & Mary 62-7. It may not feel entirely natural to say it, but Duke has earned its place near the top, and maybe even the claim to being the second-best team in the conference.
Wake Forest, though, is right there in that same conversation after beating Louisville 30-27. The Deacons are 3-1 overall and 1-1 in ACC play, and their quarterback keeps making people ask the same question: wonder where they got him from… This week brings Stanford to town on Saturday.
SMU dropped a bit after a 34-24 win over Missouri State. Missouri State is FBS now, but that was close enough to make it hard to keep the Mustangs higher.
Virginia Tech also stayed unbeaten, though the Hokies had to work for it in a 21-14 win over Boston College. It wasn’t flashy, but it was enough to set up a very interesting conference clash this week.
Pitt handled business the easy way, crushing Bucknell 59-0. Virginia followed with a much more comfortable 42-3 win over Delaware, a solid bounce-back after its loss to West Virginia.
Louisville, meanwhile, fell back to .500 after dropping a 30-27 game at Wake Forest. The ranking may feel a little harsh, but 2-2 is 2-2. The Cardinals now head to NC State on Saturday.
Florida State moved to 2-2 with a 34-7 win over Central Arkansas, and the next four games are going to define how the Seminoles’ season gets remembered.
Clemson also got a needed win, beating Cal 24-10. The Tigers still don’t look fully out of the woods, but after the rough start, there is at least a path to 9-3. That sets up a huge one this week against Miami on Saturday.
Stanford grabbed a surprising 34-27 win over Georgia Tech, while North Carolina’s bye at least kept the Tar Heels from adding another loss. NC State beat Appalachian State 41-31, but after last week’s meltdown against Vanderbilt, the Wolfpack slide below UNC in these rankings.
Cal drops after the loss to Clemson, and the offense still looks like a major issue. Tosh Lupoi is in his first year and has time to change the narrative, but right now the team looks like a defensive coordinator who got hired as a coach.
Georgia Tech keeps hearing that it’s better than its record, but at 1-3, the excuses are getting thin. Boston College lost 21-14 to Virginia Tech and hasn’t done enough beyond that close game to move much. Syracuse, off this week, slides to the bottom, helped along mostly by the fact that BC played and looked okay.
In Other News...
UNCs New Era Is Already Sending A Clear Message In Charlotte
North Carolinas first public step into the Michael Malone era will come with a familiar kind of stage in Charlotte, where the Tar Heels will be represented at the 2026 ACC Tipoff by Neoklis Avdalas and Jarin Stevenson. It is a small detail on paper, but these preseason events tend to say plenty about where a program thinks its center of gravity is heading, and UNC is sending one transfer and one returning piece it expects to matter right away.
Avdalas arrives from Virginia Tech as part of the new look around the roster, while Stevenson enters as one of the players expected to carry a bigger load for the Heels. Malone will be there as well, making it the first season under his leadership and giving UNC an early chance to show how its next chapter is taking shape before the games start to count. [Read more 🡒]
UNC Is Already Battling For A Prized In-State 2029 Star
The early recruiting board for North Carolina is already taking shape in the Class of 2029, and Grant Duggins has quickly emerged as one of the names worth tracking. The Greensboro forward recently made an official visit to Chapel Hill, a clear sign the Tar Heels want to get in front of the in-state talent before the chase gets crowded. Duggins has drawn attention for his play in high school and AAU ball, and several programs have already put offers on the table.
For UNC, the interest is obvious even if the paperwork is not quite there yet. The Tar Heels have shown early involvement, but Duggins still does not have an official offer from the program, which leaves his recruitment in an interesting spot this early in the process. With other schools already in the mix, Carolina will have to keep pressing if it wants to stay positioned with one of the states most closely watched young forwards. [Read more 🡒]
UNCs Quarterback Problem May Not Be About The Quarterback
The quarterback conversation around UNC has gotten noisy fast, but the bigger question may be whether the issue is really the quarterback at all. Gio Lopez and Mac Jones both had uneven stretches under Bill Belichick before showing more comfort once they were away from his program, and that backdrop makes it harder to dismiss the current Tar Heels problems as simply a talent miss.
Billy Edwards Jr. has stepped into a situation that already feels familiar to anyone who watched Mack Brown navigate similar coaching turbulence at Texas and then again in Chapel Hill. When the same kinds of struggles keep following different passers, the spotlight shifts from the player to the structure around him, and that is where UNCs latest offensive frustration seems to be leading. [Read more 🡒]