ACC Football News & Notes: College Football is Back

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While the calendar still says August, college football is set to return this Saturday. In the ACC, this will mean two games are set to take place. One game will take place in Ireland as Florida State will meet Georgia Tech. The other game is set for Nevada as one of the new members of the conference, the SMU Mustangs, will start on the road at Nevada. Let’s give you some idea of what has been going on in the league since last fall.

On July 1 the league added three new schools to the conference in SMU along with two former PAC-12 members the Stanford Cardinal and the University of California Golden Bears. With these additions, 17 schools make up the ACC. In football, there will be a one-division setup. The three new schools will compete in all sports across the landscape of the league.

With only one division, it will be important to finish in the top two spots in the division standings. That’s because those who ended up in those two spots based on winning percentage will be the teams that play for the ACC Championship in December. The conference football model is in place for the next seven years. Conference matchups will now increase from 56 to 68 games. Each member school will play eight league games. Over the seven years of this new model, each school will play home and away against each other.

The Pre-Season Associated Press poll has four league teams in the Top-25 ranking. Florida State is at #10, Clemson at #14, Miami at #19, and North Carolina State at #24. The same four teams are also ranked in the coaches poll as well. Five other teams, Louisville, Virginia Tech, SMU, North Carolina, and Syracuse received votes.

The Seminoles begin their season in Ireland on Saturday playing the Yellow Jackets. For FSU, this will be the first time playing in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic. For Tech, this will be the second time in this game. In 2016 they defeated Boston College 17-14. This will be the 27th time these two have met. Florida State has a 15-11-1 advantage. Eight of the past nine games have been decided by single digits. Brent Key will be at the helm of the Yellow Jackets for a full season, his second. He has an 11-10 record. He has helped Georgia Tech to wins over four teams that were ranked at the time they met. The Yellow Jackets won three of their last four league games a year ago. They were 5-3 in the conference. The seven overall wins were the most since 2018. Hayes King will be the quarterback for game one. He started all 13 games a season ago. He threw for over 2,800 yards and 27 touchdowns last year. He added 10 more on the ground.

Florida State is the defending champion from last year and has been picked to repeat as champions this year. They will start the year with a familiar face at QB.DJ Uiagalelei who spent time at Clemson, is the Seminoles starting quarterback. He spent 2023 at Oregon State. His college career record is 30-10 and has thrown for more than 8,300 yards in his career. Head coach Mike Norvell is in his fifth season at FSU and his record is 69-32. Over the past two years, his teams have won 23 games while going to back-to-back bowl games.

The other game has SMU at Nevada. This is the seventh time these two have played. It is the third time the Mustangs have gone to Reno where they are 0-2 in previous games. SMU was 11-3 in the AAC, a perfect 8-0 in league play, and they were conference champions 12 times. Last season’s 11-win total was their highest since 1982. They also ended the season as a ranked team at #23. Quarterback Preston Stone threw for 3,197 yards and 28 touchdowns. He led the AAC in passer efficiency at 161.3 and in yards per attempt at 9.3. Head coach Rhett Lashlee is in his third year with SMU the team is 18-9 under him. They have been to two straight bowl games.

This is the first of our season-long journey with the ACC. We will be with you straight through the league title game.