ACC Football News and Notes.

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ACC Football News and Notes

Week nine is in the books and interesting things are happening in the league. Here is some of what’s going on.

The AP Top 25 poll saw some changes this week. From the ACC, a couple of teams became first-timers in the poll. The Syracuse Orangemen and Virginia Cavaliers are in the ranking for the first time this season. While the North Carolina State Wolfpack and Miami Hurricanes dropped out. Back the poll for the second time this year is the Boston College Eagles.

The Syracuse Orangemen are ranked in the poll for the first time as an Atlantic Coast Conference member. It’s the first time back in the ranking since January 4, 2002. They are also bowl eligible for the first time since 2013.

Virginia is ranked for the first time since November 20, 2011. They are bowl eligible in back-to-back seasons for the first time in fourteen years. The last time the Cavaliers accomplished this was 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 when Virginia went bowling four years in a row.

The conference has four teams now in the bowl picture, Clemson (8-0), Boston College (6-2), Syracuse (6-2), and Virginia (6-2). The league also has three other teams within a win of getting there, Duke (5-3), Miami (5-3), and NC State (5-2).

FIVE #ACCFootball teams in the first @CFBPlayoff Rankings!

2️⃣ @ClemsonFB
1️⃣9️⃣ @CuseFootball
2️⃣1️⃣ @PackFootball
2️⃣2️⃣ @BCFootball
2️⃣5️⃣ @UVAFootball pic.twitter.com/VR5i1Jzxek

— ACC Football (@ACCFootball) October 31, 2018

Through nine weeks of conference games, scoring in the ACC is at its highest in league history. Conference teams in 2018 are scoring at a 32.3 clip on average which is ahead of the pace set back in 2016 when the teams were scoring at an averaged of 30.7 points per game.

Running the football can be a big advantage to a team. The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets lead the nation in this category. They lead with an average of 366.5 yards per game. That average is more than 50 yards better than the second place team in the country, the Army Black Knights.

For the third time this year, Syracuse quarterback Eric Dungey is the ACC Offensive player of the week. All he did was account for 443 of the 561 yards of total offense in the Orange 51-43 victory over then #22 NC State. Dungey was 27-for-48, threw for 411 yards and three touchdowns. On the ground, he had 15 carries for 32 yards with a rushing score. He became Syracuse’s career total offense leader with 10,064 yards in 34 games.

There are co-running backs of the week. First, there is Dean Jackson from Duke. He set a single-game record and became just the third player in ACC history with 400 or more all-purpose yards in a game. Jackson’s tally was 403 yards in the Blue Devils 54-45 loss to Pittsburgh. He rushed 10 times for 162 yards (16.2 average), caught three passes for 89 yards and one touchdown (a 74 yarder), and returned six kickoffs for 152 yards (25.3 average). Jackson logged three plays from scrimmage of 50 yards or more. He had a 50-yard run, the 74-yard TD catch, and a 60-yard run. The last two are the longest plays this season by Duke. Jackson joins Tobias Palmer of Clemson (496 yards vs NC State in 2012) and John Leach (411 vs Maryland in 1993) as the only players to accomplish this.

The other back is Matt Colburn from Wake Forest. He rushed for a career-high 243 yards in the Demon Deacons 56-35 win at Louisville. He carried the ball 20 times for an average of 12.3 yards per rush and scored a career-best three TD’s on runs of 74, 56, and 12 yards. Colburn now has eight career 100 yards rushing games.

Defensive lineman of the week is Carlos Basham of Wake. In the same game, Basham recorded four tackles, two of them for losses, and recovered a fumble that he took back 23 yards for a touchdown in the second quarter.

Offensive Lineman – Parker Braun (@GeorgiaTechFB)
Specialist – Alex Kessman (@Pitt_FB)
Co-Rookie: Trevor Lawrence (@ClemsonFB); Tobias Oliver (@GeorgiaTechFB)

Read more: https://t.co/vCweCJ4p7Z 🏈 #ACCFootball pic.twitter.com/H99kjW5pyG

— ACC Football (@ACCFootball) October 29, 2018

There are also co-rookies of the week. Clemson QB Freshman Trevor Lawrence is just tearing it up. For the second straight week, and third time this year, he wins this honor in last Saturday’s destruction of Florida State, 59-10. Lawrence threw for 314 yards and tied a career-high with four touchdowns. The yardage also a career-high. Lawrence has now broken Deshawn Watson’s records for single-season passing yards and passing touchdowns by a true freshman.

The other rookie of the week is QB Tobias Oliver of Georgia Tech. Coming off the bench, Oliver ran for 215 yards on 40 carries. He also scored three touchdowns which matched a career high in the Yellow Jackets beat-down of Virginia Tech 49-28. The 215 yards were the most by a Tech quarterback in their history.