ACC Football Results Still Sagging, As Elite Teams Raid League Rosters
By DAVID GLENN
Heading into the final weekend of college football’s 2025 regular season, the Atlantic Coast Conference is an afterthought in the sport’s national championship conversation.
Someone will represent the ACC in this year’s 12-team College Football Playoff, of course, but the league’s champion — perhaps #21 SMU (8-3) or #18 Virginia (9-2)? — definitely won’t be considered a serious threat to win three consecutive CFP games against the toughest competition and claim the national crown.
Here in North Carolina on Saturday, many will care about the results as 4-7 UNC visits 6-5 NC State (7:30 p.m., ACCN), or as 8-3 Wake Forest visits 6-5 Duke (3:30 p.m., ACCN), but each of those Big Four programs has been almost entirely irrelevant on the national scene for the past two decades or longer.
League-wide, heading into the 2025 campaign, ACC football teams deserved and received a lot of credit for scheduling the largest number of nonconference games against Power Four opponents, meaning either Notre Dame or members of the Big 12, the Big Ten or the Southeastern Conference.
ACC officials celebrated — and the league finally earned some positive, gridiron-related headlines — all the way back in Week One, when Miami defeated #6 Notre Dame, Florida State shocked #8 Alabama and Georgia Tech went to Colorado and beat coach Deion Sanders’ high-profile Buffaloes.
Those positive ACC talking points were essentially forced into hibernation, however, when the league’s aggressive scheduling approach ultimately led to a horrific 5-16 record (with five such games remaining this season; see below) against nonconference Power Four foes.
The ACC’s embarrassing 23.8% success rate in those high-profile games not only ranks far behind the performances of the SEC, the Big 12 and the Big Ten at this very late stage of the season, it’s slightly behind those of the American Conference and the Mountain West Conference, too.
2025 Nonconference Results (Power Four + Notre Dame Only)
Conference — Record (Success Rate)
SEC — 10-4 (.714)
Big 12 — 8-6 (.571)
Big Ten — 5-7 (.417)
American — 6-11 (.353)
Mountain West — 4-12 (.250)
ACC — 5-16 (.238)
Sun Belt — 1-16 (.059)
MAC — 1-23 (.042)
Pac-12 — 0-8 (.000)
CUSA — 0-12 (.000)
Since expanding to 17 teams in football, the ACC has not been as nationally competitive as it’d hoped to be. (Photo by Michael Koh/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
Looking ahead to this year’s College Football Playoff, it’s not difficult to envision a rub-salt-in-wound effect for the ACC.
Just as the SEC overwhelmed the ACC in men’s basketball last season — first in the transfer portal, then on the court — almost all of this year’s top college football contenders are winning big with the help of one or more former ACC standouts.
At #2 Indiana (11-0), the top player is California transfer Fernando Mendoza. A two-year starter for the Bears, he’s now a serious Heisman Trophy candidate for the Hoosiers. On defense, one of IU’s starting safeties is sixth-year senior Devan Boykin, an NC State transfer who started 20 games for the Wolfpack.
At #3 Texas A&M (11-0), one of the top players is NC State transfer KC Concepcion. After starting the past two seasons for the Wolfpack, he now ranks among his new league’s leaders in both receiving yards and punt returns, and he’s a virtual lock to end up on the All-SEC team.
At #5 Texas Tech (10-1), linebacker David Bailey — a Stanford transfer who had started games for the Cardinal in 2022, 2023 and 2024 — is a projected All-American. The Red Raiders also have ACC teams to thank for starting left tackle Howard Sampson (UNC) and starting linebacker Romello Height (Georgia Tech).
At #7 Ole Miss (10-1), the raid-the-ACC theme continues with starting left tackle Diego Pounds (UNC), starting tight end Dae’Quan Wright (Virginia Tech) and starting wide receiver Deuce Alexander (Wake Forest).
At #9 Notre Dame (9-2), the key ACC transfers include starting wide receiver Malachi Fields (Virginia), starting cornerback Jalen Stroman (Virginia Tech) and starting kicker Noah Burnette (UNC).
As in basketball, the transfer portal is merely one aspect of successful program-building. As long as Big Ten, SEC and Big 12 teams are poaching more proven talents from the ACC than the ACC manages to lure away from those leagues, though, it’s difficult to foresee a dramatic rise in the ACC’s football fortunes.
2025 ACC-Power Four Results
(ACC: 5-16 Record Thus Far)
Georgia Tech 27, Colorado 20
Florida State 31, #8 Alabama 17
#9 LSU 17, #4 Clemson 10
#24 Tennessee 45, Syracuse 26
#13 South Carolina 24, Virginia Tech 11
#10 Miami 27, #6 Notre Dame 24
TCU 48, North Carolina 14
Baylor 38, #17 SMU 35 (2OT)
Michigan State 42, Boston College 30 (2OT)
#11 Illinois 45, Duke 19
BYU 27, Stanford 3
Vanderbilt 44, Virginia Tech 20
California 27, Minnesota 14
West Virginia 31, Pittsburgh 27 (OT)
#12 Miami 26, Florida 7
UCF 34, North Carolina 9
TCU 35, SMU 24
#16 Notre Dame 36, NC State 7
#12 Notre Dame 25, Boston College 10
#9 Notre Dame 37, #22 Pittsburgh 15
#9 Notre Dame 70, Syracuse 7
——–
#4 Georgia at #23 Georgia Tech (Friday)
Kentucky at Louisville (Saturday)
Clemson at South Carolina (Saturday)
Florida State at Florida (Saturday)
#9 Notre Dame at Stanford (Saturday)
David Glenn (DavidGlennShow.com, @DavidGlennShow) is an award-winning author, broadcaster, editor, entrepreneur, publisher, speaker, writer and university lecturer (now at UNC Wilmington) who has covered sports in North Carolina since 1987.
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