ACC Football Power Rankings Entering Week Five: Did the Hokies Climb?
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Interconference play kicked off this week for many ACC teams. As it sits, eight teams have yet to start ACC play. Georgia Tech, Virginia, Syracuse, and Duke won their first ACC games, with NC State and Stanford splitting their interconference play. To the shock of many, only one team has lost both conference matchups: the Clemson Tigers.
Buckle up. There's some major names falling in this week's ACC football power rankings.
The Hurricanes have hiked up to second on the AP Top 25 poll. They've reached their highest ranking since 2017. Carson Beck is making a strong case for the best quarterback among teams in the top 25. Against polled teams, he's posted a passer rating of 174.6 with 545 passing yards and five touchdowns. Mark Fletcher Jr. has blossomed into their lead back. The junior hasn't been held under 60 yards through four weeks, rushing for 388 yards and five touchdowns on the year. The Hurricanes' defense has been turning the clock back to the early 2000s. Their latest matchup against the Gators saw them suffocate D.J. Lagway and company to just 141 total yards. Miami continues to look as advertised, and they have an extra week to rest and prepare for the next best team in the ACC and the state of Florida.
Canes. Keep. Fighting.
— Miami Hurricanes Football (@CanesFootball) September 21, 2025
📺: ABC pic.twitter.com/acIP1DaE9O
The biggest success story in college football so far resides in Tuscaloosa. Mike Norvell has gone from the hot seat to a throne of success. Florida State sits at eighth on the AP poll and is looking to stay for a while. They've got a hot Cavaliers team next up on the schedule. The Seminoles open as 7.5-point favorites. Tommy Castellanos continues to gel with this offense, and their defensive unit looks night and day compared to 2024. While their eyes may already be set on Miami, Virginia is no pushover.
Haynes King and Co. show no signs of slowing down. Even when King is quiet, their run game looks like a well-oiled machine. Their latest showing against Temple showed just that. Georgia Tech rushed for 307 yards and four touchdowns on 10.4 yards per carry. That's hard to match and almost impossible to stop. They've got plenty of talent on the back burner for when Jamal Haynes isn't on the field. Their biggest challenges are mostly out of the way, with a certain bulldog waiting for them at the end of the schedule. There will always be chaos, and things got shaky for the Yellow Jackets when ACC play started last year. They're off to a great start, however, and are making that possibility less likely as the weeks go on.
The Cardinals are in some trouble ahead of their game against Pittsburgh. The reigning ACC-lead rusher, Isaac Brown, and his right-hand man, Duke Watson, were absent from their matchup versus Bowling Green. Brown logged just one carry for eighteen yards, and Watson didn't see a single snap. Now, resting against a team like Bowling Green isn't a bad idea, but they're both cited with lower leg injuries, leaving their status for week five in the air. Keyjuan Brown looked good in place of the Cardinals' lead back, and Miller Moss has the talent and schematic familiarity now to support the team in their absence. Losing the heart and soul of their offense against a Panthers team hungry for an upset, however, is less than ideal.
The Wolfpack lost and ranked even higher? That's the weird thing about power rankings. They beat Virginia, Virginia beat Duke, Duke beat NC State. Morale of the story: I don't know what the correct order is, and I'm just going with my gut. Taking into account who has lost to whom so far and the outlook for the rest of the season, NC State feels like the biggest threat among those below them. Duke may have gotten the better of NC State last week, but the Wolfpack still has a better rest-of-season outlook among ACC opponents. C.J. Bailey had an off night, but Hollywood Smothers nearly put the team on his back. A late breakaway run from the Blue Devils gave them the game, but the upside for this NC State team continues to rise.
It's hard not to love what the Cavaliers are putting together. This is the best their offense has looked this decade. Chandler Morris is fitting like a glove for Tony Elliott's offense. He's coming off a five-touchdown outing versus Stanford and has thrown just one interception through four weeks. Virginia has a relatively easy schedule, but faces a giant in Florida State this week. They have beaten the Seminoles two out of the last three times, but have a 4-15 record overall. This will be Elliott's biggest challenge of his coaching career. Not only will it be the first time he faces the Seminoles, but it will also be the second straight year that the Cavaliers will enter week five 3-1. Expectations keep rising for Virginia, and an upset versus the Seminoles would skyrocket their stock.
The Orange had the upset of a lifetime. Looking back at it, it may not seem as significant. Clemson could be the 2024 Seminoles. The shock of the nature of this matchup will remain no matter what. Steve Angeli put on a good showing, throwing all over the Tigers. Him and Yasin Wells did their part playing keep away from Clemson's offense. Cade Klubnik was actually given plenty of opportunities to get back in this game, but Syracuse looked like a better-coached team. Fran Brown deserves every compliment possible for what he's turned the program into in such a short time. It doesn't matter what he loses talent-wise; he'll find a way to refuel and compete.
Those were the Blue Devils that were expected all along. Darian Mensah continues to be one of my favorite quarterbacks to watch in the ACC. He had arguably his best game so far against NC State, making clutch play after clutch play when called upon. It wasn't just Mensah making plays, though. Anderson Castle had a hat-trick highlighted by the game-sealing 66-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter. Duke is a very fair-weather squad. When they are hot, it's hard to keep up. When faced with adversity, they can't stop tripping over their own feet. If this victory inspires consistency, then Duke can easily climb up to the top five in these rankings. A red-hot Syracuse team stands in their way. With the way both of these offenses have looked so far, it should be an absolute shootout.
THERE GOES ANDERSON CASTLE!!!!! pic.twitter.com/x0hn9BhfMl
— Duke Football (@DukeFOOTBALL) September 20, 2025
The Panthers disappointed against West Virginia, but it's not a gutting loss. It was a competitive environment, and they just didn't come out of the other side of it. The utilization of Desmond Reid is a massive question mark. He was a staple of the offense last year and proved to be one of the best dual threats in the country. His receiving ability is something that can't go unutilized, yet it has. Eli Holstein is filling the stat sheet, but the lack of strength on the ground showed against the Mountaineers. The Panthers have a great back who deserves more touches. Getting Reid more involved could solidify some of these late-game scripts.
Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele looked like a true freshman against San Diego St. He's continued to flash potential down the line for the Golden Bears. The risk with playing young prospects like him, however, is rolling with the punches. The Aztecs sucker-punched Cal on both sides of the ball. Jordan Napier torched their secondary. When Sagapolutele tried to respond, he was met with rejection. They brought him down four times and intercepted two passes, running one back for a 96-yard pick-six. There were a few positives in this shutout, but this is just their first loss. It's a young season for a young team, and fighting through adversity is the biggest lesson they have to learn.
The Mustangs look like a shell of their 2024 selves. After going undefeated in regular-season ACC play, they have lost both of their matchup against Power Four programs. Kevin Jennings has not protected the ball well. He's committed to being a gunslinger. That play style is a double-edged sword, however. Always swinging for home runs means you're going to strike out more. Without the talent of Brashard Smith from last season to fall back on, Jennings is expected to take control of the game. Combine the lack of that with a weak defense, and the Mustangs look like a middle-of-the-pack ACC competitor.
I was wrong about this team, but not about Demond Claiborne. Anyone with a pair of eyes could see the talent Claiborne possesses. He was the only proven talent on this offense heading into the season and lived up to the hype through two weeks. So if you told me Wake Forest would be in this game for the majority of the day, it would be expected that Claiborne would be at the core of it. He wasn't. He actually had one of the weaker games of his career.
Robby Ashford flashed, but his two interceptions overshadowed the day. An opening special teams touchdown gave Wake Forest momentum to make this game a fight for the Wolfpack. Their run defense is their Achilles heel, allowing Hollywood Smothers to gash them for 164 yards. They put up 24 points in the first half and led, but were shut out in the second half. This was still a good loss for Wake Forest. They competed with an NC State team that could be the sleeping giant of the ACC. Even though they're no longer undefeated, their only loss showed more positives than anyone could've anticipated.
Remember when Dabo Swinney said “most of the guys in the portal aren’t good enough to play for (Clemson)?”
— Jon Tweets Sports (@jontweetssports) September 20, 2025
Syracuse just beat Clemson with two transfer QBs, transfer OL, transfer leading WR, transfer leading tackler and more… pic.twitter.com/gnx3UKJX1z
Give it up for this week's biggest fallers: the Clemson Tigers! Time and time again this season, signal-caller Cade Klubik has folded under pressure. He's been given multiple chances to take games over or at least get Clemson back into games. Their defense could be better but with the amount of talent Clemson possesses on offense, however, there comes a point where someone has to step up. So far, no one has done so.
They're in a very odd place. They've committed to Klubnik being the guy and don't really have the confidence to go any other direction. Their quarterback situation reads like Georgia's from last year, but the Tigers don't have the defense that the Bulldogs did. They'll likely finish much better than some are projecting, but Clemson is now in a fight for bowl eligibility.
The Tar Heels turned the clock back to week one against UCF. The Knights steamrolled Bill Belichick's unit. The storyline of this team is not the present, but its future. Belichick hasn't even gotten a full recruiting season under his belt. Sure, this team 's early identity isn't enticing. Six Super Bowl rings are, however. The Tar Heels have the time to try things out and develop the guys they have. Unfortunately, there's not much being shown by their offense. The lack of a passing game continues to stall drives and leaves their defense looking exhausted by the end of the first half. While the talent definitely isn't high enough to fully blame the offense, it's obvious that's their major deficiency heading into week five.
The Hokies are winless no more! Sure, it took a SoCon team to do so, but take the victories when you can get them.
Don't mind Kyron, he's got somewhere to be 🤝#ThisIsHome pic.twitter.com/04IlWxDgcv
— Virginia Tech Football (@HokiesFB) September 20, 2025
Marcellous Hawkins took over the run game with very few touches. P.J. Prioleau had his best game coming out of the backfield as a receiver. He thrived in the yards-after-catch metric on many checkdowns from Kyron Drones. Drones didn't push the ball downfield too much due to Wofford's heavy Cover 2 scheme. It would have been nice to see some big-play ability that's been absent shine through, but winning by a significant margin is all that you can ask for from an interim head coach's first game.
I liked what Dylan Lonergan has put together so far. He was a breakout candidate I didn't foresee. That was about all I liked from the Eagles through three weeks. Their run defense was exposed by an offense that was projected to be one of the worst amongst Power Four programs, in Stanford. This team very obviously leans towards Turbo Richard on the ground, and he doesn't look like an every-down back. He's a good third-down threat, but he doesn't attack defenses the way Boston College needs on the ground. The upside of this season for the Eagles looks unknown, and the floor has been lowered. It's hard to see the Eagles becoming competitive anytime soon.
The Cardinal return to the bottom after a brief climb on the heels of their win against the Eagles. The Cavaliers stomped Stanford from start to finish. Ben Gulbranson had his best game of the season so far as a passer. He missed just nine passes on the day, but fumbled the ball once. Micah Ford was silenced on the ground after having a career day. The ups and downs will continue for Stanford, but they could get back into the win column against San Jose State.
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Brett Holmes has been covering the Hokies as a Sports Media & Analytics student at the school for the past two years. Alongside writing, he works behind the scenes as a production assistant for Virginia Tech's athletic production organization Hokie Vision. In his free time, he produces his own podcast, Holmes Field Advantage, on his YouTube. You can find him on X @_BrettHolmes
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