Biggest ACC takeaways from Week 11

If you keep playing with fire, you will eventually get burned.

Sure, that’s a tired cliché. But remember that most stereotypes are based on truth. So it was only a matter of time before Miami’s hopes of an undefeated season eventually went up in smoke.

After overcoming double-digit deficits three times this season, the fourth-ranked Hurricanes finally dug themselves into a hole that star quarterback Cam Ward couldn’t dig them out of.

Ward did what he could. He threw for 348 yards and 3 touchdowns against Georgia Tech on Saturday to give his team a chance to erase a late 12-point deficit. He became the first Miami quarterback to throw 30 touchdown passes in a season. At 32, Ward now has a chance to reach 40.

But after pulling off improbable comebacks against Virginia Tech and Cal last week and then unleashing a second-half blitz on Duke, the Heisman Trophy front-runner ran out of things to pull out of the hat.

The Yellow Jackets’ 28-23 win was a shock and a result that all but guarantees that the ACC will only have one team in the playoffs this year.

Aside from the Hurricanes having a little more intrigue and a much smaller margin for error in the final three weeks of the regular season, the result did little to shake up the race for the ACC Championship Game.

No. 13 SMU, which was idle Saturday, is the only team with an undefeated conference record. Miami and Clemson are tied for second place with one loss. But because of the tiebreakers, Miami and SMU are still on track to face each other on Dec. 7 in Charlotte for the league title and an automatic playoff bid as long as they both win.

Sounds easy.

But as we learned from this weekend’s results, nothing is easy when it comes to the ACC in general and Miami football in particular.

That’s just one of the things we learned about the ACC in Week 11. Here are some of the other key takeaways from the conference:

Who will knock them over? Who isn’t?

Okay, we’re pretty sure the ACC will only have one team in the playoffs. So let’s turn to football’s version of the NIT. All the other bowls that are in the postseason between Christmas and New Years.

Eight ACC teams have met the six-win threshold for bowl eligibility.

With Saturday’s upset of Miami, Georgia Tech became the last team to qualify for the postseason. The Yellow Jackets join the Hurricanes, SMU, Clemson, Pitt, Louisville, Duke and Syracuse in the pool to fill the ACC’s 11 bowl ties.

NC State and Virginia Tech each had a chance to join them. But both lost on Saturday, meaning they need at least one more win to avoid staying home for the holidays. Boston College, Cal and Virginia are in a similar situation after each picking up their fifth win – the Eagles over Syracuse, the Bears over Wake Forest and the Cavaliers over Pitt.

Although everyone else still has a great chance of staying in bowl contention, only Florida State and Stanford are mathematically eliminated.

The Devils are still defensive

The coaching staff may have changed. The same applies to a large part of the staff. But Duke’s identity has remained the same despite the transition from Mike Elko to Manny Diaz.

The Blue Devils showed off their defensive prowess again on Saturday in a 29-19 win at NC State. They set the tone by sacking quarterback CJ Bailey in the end zone on the Wolfpack’s second play of the game and kept the pressure on throughout the day, forcing 8 tackles for loss, 7 quarterback hurries, 6 pass breakups and two turnovers.

Duke limited its neighboring rival to just a single touchdown and forced five field goal attempts to improve to 7-3 in its first season under Diaz, who like his predecessor was a successful defensive coordinator before becoming head coach.

Considering the changes that have taken place since Elko left for Texas A&M in the middle of the night last December, the comparisons between the last two Blue Devil defenses are notable. Duke led the ACC in scoring defense with 19.0 points per game in 2023. They currently rank in the top four with an average of 22.4. This year’s team is giving up fewer yards per game than last year – 349.1-352.7 – and is allowing the fewest passing yards per game at just 192.6 Play in the league.

It limited Bailey to 184 yards through the air and State to 268 total yards to get back to winning ways after two straight losses. However, to the two best teams in the conference, SMU and Miami.

Get out your checkbook again, Pat

Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi was fined $5,000 by the ACC earlier this season for publicly criticizing the referees who worked his team’s win against West Virginia.

“We beat West Virginia in the Backyard Brawl and also beat the officials in a game,” he said.

If Narduzzi was so excited about the calls in a game his team won, one can only imagine how out of shape he must have been after suffering a fourth-quarter loss to Virginia on Saturday that ended every chance had ruined the conference championship game for Pitt to advance. He would have the right to screw the officials again.

Regardless of the cost.

Pitt was down by 2 with just over five minutes left when it appeared the Cavaliers might be stopped with a 4th-and-1 play. However, because referee Nate Black ruled that his crew was out of position when the ball was snapped, the play was canceled and UVa was given another chance to get the first down.

The Cavaliers took advantage of the restart to extend their drive, missing another three minutes and kicking a field goal that forced Pitt to score a touchdown instead of just a field goal to take the lead. We’ll never know how things would have turned out if the original piece had remained as it was. But we can say with 100% certainty that it completely changed the dynamics of the game.

This controversy is the latest in a series of refereeing issues involving ACC referees this season. And Narduzzi isn’t the only coach to criticize her. Louisville’s Jeff Brohm and Virginia Tech’s Brent Pry also opted out because of questionable, game-changing decisions. It’s a problem that the league needs to take action to fix this offseason to avoid further damage to its credibility.

Clemson still can’t get going

The Tigers’ position denial situation was so bad last year that Dabo Swinney literally plucked a former player who had one year of eligibility left from the beach to rejoin the team and handle field goal and extra point duties. This season the kicker wasn’t the problem. But the players in front who are supposed to protect him.

Freshman Nolan Hauer is 12 of 17 field goals this season. All 5 of his missed throws were blocked. Two of those came in a win at Florida State due to what Swinney described as mishaps on the left side of the finish line. He had the same explanation for the next two, which came in last week’s loss to Louisville. Swinney addressed the problem by making some personnel changes to the field goal unit.

So what happened on Saturday?

Hauer was able to block another kick. This time it came from the middle of the line and led to a Virginia Tech touchdown when the Hokies’ Quentin Reddish caught the ball and returned it 77 yards for the score. In case you were wondering, Mike Reed is Clemson’s special teams coach. But maybe not for long.

The bears are finally bullish

Former North Carolina, Wake Forest and Virginia Tech coach Bill Dooley had a unique way of saying something good about every opponent his team played.

No matter how bad it was.

One of my favorites is when he called Tulane, right Approachable as it sounded in his distinctive Southern style: “the best winless team in America.”

Cal wasn’t exactly winless heading into the weekend. It is actually undefeated against non-conference competition. But going 0-4 against the ACC in their first season in the league, it can be argued that the Bears were the best last-place team to go winless in their conference.

Justin Wilcox’s team leads the conference in scoring defense with just 19.3 points allowed per game. Her 17 interceptions are also the best in the league, while her 29 sacks are the second most. And with 28.7 points per game, the Bears are also among the top 10 in scoring offense.

They are good enough to lead No. 4 Miami by 25 points in the second half. Just not good enough to finish games. Their 4 ACC losses are a combined 9 points. Their luck changed Friday at Wake Forest.

Cal tried its best to take another lead, allowing the Deacons to cut a 15-point lead to just a field goal in the 4th quarter. This time, however, it responded with a late touchdown and secured the 46:36 victory.

Now that the Bears have finally broken the ice in the conference, the mood around them has changed dramatically. At 5-4 overall, they are one win away from bowl eligibility. And with a season-ending game at SMU, they may be able to have a say in both ACC Championship games.