ACC Football News & Notes: Florida State Cruising to Title Game

Read Time:4 Minute, 2 Second

Week nine of the Atlantic Coast Conference season finds only one school still unbeaten. The Florida State Seminoles at 7-0 overall and 5-0 in league play, find themselves on top of the league with a one-game lead in the loss column over the Louisville Cardinals (6-1, 3-1). While nothing is a given, as of now, the Seminoles possess the inside track to one of the two spots in the ACC Championship game set for December. Three other teams have a shot at playing FSU in Charlotte. They are Louisville, North Carolina (6-1, 3-1) and Duke (5-2, 2-1). Everyone is in action, however, not all are playing conference games. Let’s take a look at how the last weekend in October looks.

The league has the highest strength of schedule of all FBS conferences, a 53.07 rating provided by SportsSource Analytics. They also have 26 wins against Power-5 conference teams with .500 or better records. That is the most among those conferences. 42.3 percent of league games have been decided by one score or less. That is the second highest among Power-5 leagues. Florida State’s overall record is their best start since 2014 when they went 13-0 overall and 8-0 in the league. As this week gets underway, there are 30 bowl-eligible teams in FBS. Three of them are from the ACC, Florida State, Louisville, and North Carolina. Two others, Duke and Miami could join this group by the weekend’s end. Since 2017, the ACC has averaged 10 bowl-eligible teams every year.

There is one Top-20 matchup in the league this weekend as #20 Duke meets #18 Louisville. The Cardinals rank in the top-25 in the nation in both offense and defense. The Cardinals are 18th in total offense (460.7 yards a game) and 25th in defense (317.9). The Duke Blue Devils are 24th in total defense (315.9 yards a game). Duke is ranked 27th in SportsSource scoring offense with 130.80%. The Blue Devils are 5th in the country in scoring defense (13.9 PPG). In red-zone defense, both teams are in the top-25. Duke is second at 61.1%, while Louisville is 4th at 64.3%.

Florida State heads to Wake Forest (4-3, 1-3) with a 13-game winning streak to protect. It is the third-longest streak to date trailing only Georgia and Washington. During the streak, FSU has scored at least 30 points in each of those games. That is the longest active streak in the ACC. It is also the second-longest active streak in the nation. Add to that an 8-game league winning streak heading into this weekend’s game with the Demon Decanos. With their win over Duke last week, the Seminoles now have a seven-game home winning streak which is ninth best in FBS. Wake meanwhile, is coming off their first-ever win at home over Pittsburgh 21-17. They now hold a 23-5 record at home since the start of the 2019 season. The 81.5% win rate at home since 2019 is second to Clemson.

Syracuse, which is yet to win a game in the league (4-3, 0-3), has a strength of schedule that is ranked 12th according to ESPN College Football Power Index. It is the most difficult schedule of any team in the league to date. All three of the Orange losses have come vs teams inside the top 20. However, they will not as of now face a top-20 team over the remaining five games of their season.

The Boston College Eagles have found a running game. For the second game in a row, the Eagles ran for over 300 yards. Both games have been on the road (Army, Georgia Tech). The last time BC did this was back in 2017 vs Connecticut and Syracuse. This week, they play their final non-conference game vs those Huskies. QB Thomas Castellanos scored twice on the ground last week vs GT. He now has nine rushing touchdowns on the year. He is one of four FBS quarterbacks with multiple 100-yard rushing games and the only Power-5 QB to do it.

North Carolina State (4-3, 1-2) WR KC Concepcion is the first true freshman in school history to have two 100-yard receiving games in a season. He has those two in seven games to date. He is also the Wolfpack’s leading receiver this season. He ranks sixth in the league with 5.3 catches a contest. He has either led his team or tied his team for the most catches in five of the seven games played.

That’s it for this week. We will be back next week with more from the ACC.