If the world were fair and just and the football gods shined their light upon all willing to bend the knee and honor the sport, then this would be the weekend in which we celebrate the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The headlining act of Week 9 should be this: The No. 1 team in the country, Miami, is set to visit North Carolina to face off against the greatest coach ever to walk a sideline.
The stage would be crowded with another marquee matchup between the two programs that have most defined the league's success over the past three decades: Florida State, owner of three national championships since 1993, and Clemson, owner of four title game appearances and two trophies in the past 12 years.
The undercard would be a joyous menagerie featuring last year's Cinderella, Virginia, against this year's little engine that could, Wake Forest. It would be a chance to enjoy a showdown between two programs with rich histories still clawing their way back after enduring the harshest of punishments -- the "death penalty" at SMU and the Greg Robinson era at Syracuse. It would be a chance to see two schools that gave us two of the most electric players of the past decade -- Christian McCaffrey and Lamar Jackson -- battle as Stanford visits the Louisville Cardinals. It would be an opportunity to see Pat Narduzzi and Brent Key do the college football equivalent of the two Spider-Mans (Spider-Men?) pointing at each other when Georgia Tech visits Pitt.
But this is not a fair and just world. This is college football in 2026, where even the safest brands feel a bit unsteady on their feet and every ACC game has the feel of an unsuspecting man standing on the street as two inept contractors lift a piano into an open window 10 stories above.
Miami-UNC is indeed a star-studded affair. The Canes, with two legitimate Heisman Trophy contenders, are the top-ranked team in the country, and yet we're still probably not appreciating just how good Darian Mensah and Malachi Toney have been.
In the past 20 years, there are only three QBs who have completed 80% of their passes through seven games. There are just three who have thrown 22 passing touchdowns with just one interception. And there are just 23 from power conferences who have tallied 2,000 passing yards and averaged 10 yards per attempt, with 14 of those going on to become first-round draft picks. Mensah is in all three of those groups.
Entering this season, no ACC receiver had more catches through seven games than Syracuse's Steve Ishmael (62 in 2017), more receiving yards Torry Holt's 933 in 1998 or more receiving touchdowns than Jordan Addison's 10 in 2021.
Toney has topped all three of those marks this season.
And yet, there is still an enormous monkey on Miami's back even after a run to the national championship game a year ago and a 7-0 start to this year. Thanks to a mix of ineptitude, injuries, inane tiebreakers and five years of Al Golden dressed as an Enterprise Rent-A-Car salesman, Miami has never won an ACC title. That the sport's premier program for nearly a quarter century turned into a punchline shortly after joining the ACC is only fitting, but this does seem like the year the Canes have to end the drought. For Miami not to win the ACC this year would take a disaster of epic proportions -- though the ACC does deliver Chernobyl-level missteps the way Dominos delivers pizzas, so anything is possible.
On the other side of the field, there is Bill Belichick and UNC enjoying a redemption arc after an utterly embarrassing rookie season in college football for the NFL's most successful coach of all time. The Tar Heels are 4-3, playing competent football with a solid defensive front and a handful of genuine weapons on offense. That competency has become the benchmark there, however, is hardly the dream the school had when it hired Belichick.
For a decade, Clemson-FSU decided ACC supremacy. This year, it features one school, Florida State, whose president sent a letter to fans that read like Robin Williams hugging Matt Damon and repeating, "It's not your fault," at the end of "Good Will Hunting," while the coach on the other side -- Dabo Swinney -- simply shrugs and sips his coffee as Clemson's house burns, with his version of "This is fine" sounding more and more like, "We're a few plays away." On the season, Clemson has thrown exactly two touchdown passes. This is not fine.
Syracuse is 14 points away from being 6-1, but instead it's 3-4 after missing seven field goals and five PATs this year.
SMU might be undefeated this year had Kevin Jennings not fumbled the ball through the back of the end zone inches before scoring against Louisville.
Louisville has three losses by a field goal. In fact, seven of the Cardinals' past eight defeats have come by three points or fewer.
Stanford -- well, the less said the better.
And yes, the ACC does have one story that is unquestionably good, one program the whole world can cheer for. Little old Wake Forest, the plucky underdog that has forced its way into the playoff conversation with a "Built in the Dark" motto that perfectly fits its brand and QB in Gio Lopez, who is offering one of the great comeback stories in the sport. But how many times has an ACC fan enjoying a blessed run been forced to throw their remote across the room and mutter, "This is why we can't have nice things"? Wake Forest should be placed in bubble wrap and protected by armed guards until its November showdown with SMU. The world is too dangerous for such a fragile creature, and a reeling Virginia team seems like just the type of opponent to undo another ACC success story.
Is all this pessimism unfair? Is it too bleak a picture painted for a league that has actually held its own quite nicely over the years despite so many body blows from the SEC, the Big Ten and, well, the universe? Sure, the ACC invented the Wheel of Destiny and Coastal Chaos and, as far as we know, served as the inspiration for several Wile E. Coyote skits. But isn't the chaos and absurdity part of the fun?
So maybe this will be an epic weekend for the ACC. After all, Week 7 gave us the SEC's implosion and Week 8 offered the Big 12's downfall, so it seems only fitting that Week 9 is the ACC's turn in the spotlight, its chance to remind the college football world that it has something to offer or, at the very least, demonstrate in real time just how thin the line between comedy and tragedy can be.
Jump to:
Top games | Under-the-radar
Upset alert | Power rankings
Heisman five | Two-minute drill
Best of the rest of Week 9
Welcome to QB2 week in the Big Ten, where an entire conference is on the brink of starting quarterbacks it picked up during a Temu flash sale.
Ohio State travels to USC without Julian Sayin, who could miss the remainder of the year. Ryan Day has been tight-lipped on whether he expects to start freshman Luke Fahey or former five-star recruit Tavien St. Clair. Given the recent performance of the Trojans' offense, it might not matter, as Lincoln Riley appears to be quietly working his way back to the Big 12 like a kid moving back in with his parents after being laid off from his Geek Squad job at Best Buy. USC's seven points against Wisconsin last week were an all-time low for a Riley-coached team, and surely Ohio State has a QB who can muster a second touchdown, right? Don't answer that.
Illinois travels to Maryland with QB Katin Houser out for about a month with a hand injury. With Malik Washington, Maryland has one of the few steady QB situations in the conference, but unfortunately the rest of the team is essentially an elaborate performance art piece designed to illustrate the dangers of conference realignment.
Northwestern is riding high behind Aiden Chiles, and the Wildcats can deliver another dagger into Oregon's woeful season -- a campaign that has unraveled after Dante Moore went down with a concussion after a brutal hit against USC.
Michigan travels to Rutgers in what would figure to be the bottom of the barrel for offensive fireworks in any week that didn't also feature Wisconsin playing Iowa. The Wolverines have handed the offense to Tommy Carr, who didn't exactly spark much excitement last week against Indiana, while Rutgers will be without its starting QB, Dylan Lonergan.
The Hoosiers, meanwhile, considered benching Josh Hoover in last week's 13-6 overtime win against Michigan. It's the second straight game in which Hoover struggled mightily, completing just 8 of 18 passes for 81 yards and an interception. Surely if the Las Vegas Raiders aren't going to use Fernando Mendoza, they could lend him back to Indiana, right?
Washington's season is already spiraling, but the Huskies have actually looked a bit friskier the past two weeks with backup QB Elijah Brown at the helm after starter Demond Williams went down with an injury. They'll travel to Nebraska, where Anthony Colandrea and the Huskers are coming off back-to-back losses in which they scored just 31 combined points.
UCLA figures to stay unbeaten as it hosts Nevada, but the Bruins are without starting QB Nico Iamaleava for the rest of the year.
And all of that leads to a showdown between Wisconsin and Iowa, two teams that last had quality QB play a while ago.
Iowa stumbled last week in a loss to Minnesota thanks to three interceptions by Hank Brown and Jeremy Hecklinski. Wisconsin pulled off a stunner over USC despite Colton Joseph throwing for just 58 yards in the win. Saturday's Heartland Trophy game should be replete with all the excitement of watching paint dry, but given the Big Ten's current QB woes, dried paint might be starting for Michigan State next week.
"The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party" is moving indoors to Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta this year as Jacksonville's EverBank Stadium gets a refresh, meaning all partygoers should be sure to use coasters and try not to spill anything on Arthur Blank's couch.
Georgia has won eight of the past nine in this series, but the last time both teams were ranked, it was Florida that came out on top in 2020. That game happened a month before Marco Wilson threw an LSU player's shoe and doomed the program to an eternity of misery, but Jon Sumrall's quest to break the curse took a positive turn in the Gators' last game when they upset Texas 27-24 in Austin.
The Dawgs, meanwhile, need to be fitted for one of those protective cones to keep from licking their wounds after a brutal loss to unranked Auburn. Georgia hasn't lost consecutive games since 2018, and it hasn't lost back-to-back regular-season games in a decade -- when the Dawgs fell to Vanderbilt and Florida in 2016. If it happens again this year, UGA fans won't have Mark Richt to blame.
Minnesota pulled off a raucous upset over Iowa last week to claim the Floyd of Rosedale trophy, which now resides on Minnesota's trophy shelf next to the Little Brown Jug, Paul Bunyan's Axe and a ribbon P.J. Fleck won during a fourth-grade spelling bee that he's still really proud of. It's the first time the Gophers have held all three rivalry trophies at once since 1978. Sadly, there is no trophy for beating Indiana because until three years ago everyone in Minnesota had forgotten the Hoosiers had a football team.
The QB injuries haven't been limited to the Big Ten. Mississippi State announced this week that Kamario Taylor would miss the remainder of the season, an abrupt end to what had been one of the best stories of September. Texas, meanwhile, enters the game with Arch Manning living out Forrest Gump's box of chocolates metaphor at QB. One week, he needs to be benched. The next, he's playing with so much swagger that it's surprising he didn't just ride Bevo home from the game. For all the praise Manning received after beating Ole Miss, however, the real story might be that the Horns finally found a ground game, rushing for 207 yards -- a season high vs. a Power 4 opponent -- behind Raleek Brown's 157 on 23 carries.
Fun fact: Since Nov. 1 of last year, Arizona has the same record as Texas Tech (11-2). Every team with a better record than the Wildcats over that span is ranked in the AP top 10. Arizona has a better record since the start of last season than Alabama, Tennessee and Missouri. Yet the Cats have largely played second fiddle in the Big 12 to the Red Raiders, BYU, Utah and even Houston. A win in Lubbock this weekend could finally wake up the rest of the country to take note and put Arizona at the top of the class in the conference.
The Rebels are trying to regroup after a late loss to Texas last week, and they'll be doing it without Kewan Lacy once again.
Auburn's enthusiasm after knocking off Georgia took a quick turn last week when LSU dominated in a 38-17 win at Jordan-Hare.
So, which team will rebound better this week? This is where the SEC's chaos theory runs into a serious paradox. If neither team can claim to have things figured out, can anyone manage an upset that has the whole SEC scratching its head?
Under-the-radar games
If parity is the defining feature of the 2026 season so far, TCU might be the best example. The Frogs are a mess. They're 3-4. Sonny Dykes fired his co-offensive coordinator after losing to West Virginia. And after this week's game, TCU plays three of its final four against top-25 teams. But also ... TCU is 24 points away from being 7-0, and all four of its losses have come by a touchdown or less. Dykes has made a career off building elite offenses, but TCU's defense has blossomed into one of the nation's best and hasn't surrendered more than 24 points in a game all season. Nothing about TCU makes sense right now, which somehow is the most logical outcome of this wild season.
With trips to Florida and Missouri and a home game against Ole Miss still on the schedule, Oklahoma might need this one to make a bowl game. South Carolina, meanwhile, is suddenly a player in the SEC, having knocked off Florida and Tennessee in back-to-back games (and coming within a 2-point conversion in overtime of beating Kentucky a week before that). South Carolina has struggling Texas A&M, Arkansas and Clemson still on the docket (along with Georgia), opening a path for Shane Beamer to get to eight wins. The big edge for South Carolina in this one? The Gamecocks lead the SEC in rushing. Oklahoma is dead last.
Some fans might bristle at the notion of a player holding a midseason news conference to announce that he signed a new contract at his current school. But it has also been three years since something good happened at Oregon State, so the Beavers can rent out a Chuck E. Cheese and set off fireworks from the roof, and its celebration of Jesse Legree would still seem understated. But the fun could certainly come to an abrupt end this week with a sneaky tough road trip to Fresno State against a Bulldogs team that gave Boise State a run for its money earlier this month.
Upset alert
Utah (at Cincinnati)
The Utes are coming off their biggest win of the year against Houston. Cincinnati is coming off its biggest win ever under Scott Satterfield after knocking off Texas Tech. Last week turned the Big 12 on its head, and yet none of the results was as nonsensical as putting next week's BYU-Utah game at 10 a.m. local time. A Bearcats win here would only add to an already chaotic race atop the conference.
Kansas State (at Colorado)
Avery Johnson is day-to-day and could miss the game. Colorado has lost five straight but has at least shown flashes of life the past two weeks. The Buffaloes hung tough against Utah two weeks ago and led Oklahoma State 24-23 at the half last week before imploding in the second half. Deion Sanders needs a win more desperately than he needs you to like and subscribe to his YouTube channel, and an upset of the Wildcats could help temper the growing concern over whether he can right the ship in Boulder.
Georgia Southern (vs. App State)
App State is fresh off a stunning upset of James Madison. Georgia Southern is 3-4 with narrow wins over struggling Coastal Carolina and Old Dominion. So, why are the Eagles favored?
Post-Week 8 power rankings
The biggest movers and shakers from last week's action:
1. The collected works of Mensah & Toney
2. UCF
3. Arch Manning looking like The Undertaker, popping up from his coffin after being left for dead ... again.
4. Arizona low-key turning into the best team in the Big 12
5. Cinnamon-based chili
6. Devon Dampier running
7. Going for two after scoring second in OT
8. Hot seat Shane Beamer
9. Kentucky
10. Sonny Dykes with a 3-4 team still knowing he was right about Josh Hoover.
Unranked: Brisket-based chili; Devon Dampier throwing; LinkedIn Riley; Oregon; more Big 12 officiating; Power 4 coaches named Dave.
Heisman five
Three-quarters of the way through the season, the Heisman race is still up in the air. Here's our take on handicapping the battle.
1. Ohio State WR Jeremiah Smith
All evidence throughout Smith's three years at Ohio State would suggest he is a superhuman and, if called upon, could throw passes to himself in a game and still finish with 140 yards and two scores. Without Julian Sayin for the foreseeable future, that's exactly what he might have to do.
2. Miami QB Darian Mensah and 3. Miami WR Malachi Toney
How can you separate Miami's two offensive superstars? It would be like suggesting Ben made better ice cream than Jerry, or the chicken came before the egg, or Bo Pelini was more of a train wreck than Carl Pelini. Some hairs can't be split, and the only fair outcome might be to have Mensah and Toney share the Heisman.
4. Oregon State WR Jesse Legree
Legree is the first FBS player with 100 receiving yards and a receiving touchdown in seven straight games since Baylor's Corey Coleman did it over two seasons from 2014 to 2015 and the first to do it in the same season since Oklahoma State's James Blackmon did it in 12 straight in 2010. But the truly astonishing thing about Legree's run is that these are the only seven games he has ever played as a college receiver.
5. Kentucky QB Kenny Minchey
A blind résumé ...
QB A: 6-1 record, 67% completions, 1,721 total yards, 16 touchdowns, one interception, 25 completions of 20 yards or more
QB B: 7-1 record, 69% completions, 1,793 total yards, 14 touchdowns, one interception, 26 completions of 20 yards or more
Who's better?
Well, what if we told you that QB A had endured just two sacks all season, while QB B's O-line had allowed 17?
Or what if we told you that QB A had played the 41st-ranked schedule in the country while QB B had played the eighth-toughest slate?
OK, you might still choose QB A, and for good reason. That's Notre Dame's CJ Carr, who has been exceptional this year. But QB B more than holds his own. That's Minchey, who a year ago battled Carr down to the wire in fall camp for the QB1 job for the Irish, transferred to Kentucky for this season, and has the Wildcats in the top 10.
Two-minute drill
On paper, this should be an easy win for the Irish. Navy has stumbled to a 2-5 start, including back-to-back losses to UTSA and North Texas, and its saving grace is that Brian Newberry's beard still looks perfect. Meanwhile, Notre Dame has won eight straight in the series and is coming off an open date it spent fuming after officials blew the ending to its game against BYU. All signs favor the Irish.
Except -- is anything supposed to be easy for the top teams anymore?
Over the past two weeks, being at the top of the rankings has been as much a curse as a blessing.
Over the past two weeks, teams ranked 1-18 in the AP poll are... 16-15. The AP top 10 are 9-8.
— 💫🅰️♈️🆔 (@ADavidHaleJoint) October 25, 2026
Fun fact: There are 10 teams with two or fewer losses, two wins over FPI top-40 opponents, and two wins on the road. The list includes No. 1 Miami, No. 2 Ohio State, No. 3 Georgia, No. 4 Indiana, No. 7 UCLA, No. 9 Kentucky, No. 10 Alabama, No. 16 Tennessee and No. 17 Florida. And the 10th team? Duke. By the way, both of the Blue Devils' two losses came on the final possession, and they were by a total of seven points.
Penn State has lost four straight in which it has averaged just 4.6 yards per play and 1.46 points per drive, and it is one of just three Power 4 teams without a Power 4 win (along with fellow Big Ten members Michigan State and Maryland). But Penn State has won 11 straight against Purdue, with the last loss coming in 2004 when Kyle Orton was QB for the Boilermakers. And yes, we apologize to all the Chicago Bears fans who just had a chill run down their spines at the mention of Kyle Orton.
Army is six points away from being 7-0, and QB Cale Hellums is tied for the FBS lead with 16 rushing touchdowns. Memphis has disappointed in losses to Boise State and Tulane Green Wave, but QB Marcus Stokes is third nationally with 21 touchdown passes. The top of the American is still wide open, with six teams with zero or one loss in conference play. This marks the first time these two teams have played since 2002.
Syracuse is debuting these amazing Otto the Orange helmets for Saturday's game against SMU.
Hall of Fame lids @TheOttoOrange We will debut helmets featuring our Hall of Fame mascot Otto for the FIRST TIME ever this Saturday, October 31st! 🍊 🎟️: https://t.co/IthG23wGfo https://t.co/laR8f9Hvrd
— Syracuse Football (@CuseFootball) October 26, 2026
Though there's no disputing that the logo is exceptional, top-tier helmets have been a mixed bag in the ACC so far this year. Georgia Tech's Ramblin' Reck helmets resulted in a 28-25 upset of Duke, but Cal's Grateful Dead tributes went over like a 27-minute jam between choruses of "Uncle John's Band" in a 41-7 loss to Wake Forest.