Look, I’m going to be honest. There’s way more ACC football content in here than I anticipated when I started typing. It might not be the best conference in football, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t the silliest. And that’s what this newsletter is for.

– Rodger Sherman

Pat Narduzzi, you incorrigible rascal! You really did it!

The Duzz turned a lot of heads last week for saying that his team’s much-hyped game against Notre Dame wasn’t that important, as he poured frigid Monongahela River water all over ESPN’s decision to bring College GameDay to Pittsburgh.

Sure enough, Pitt lost 37-15 to the Irish. (Not quite 103-10, but same ballpark.) Whatever. Didn’t matter. This week’s game, however, did matter, and Pitt came to play, beating Georgia Tech 42-28.

A-ha! Narduzzi’s master plan has come to fruition! Kneel before the mighty Panthers and despair! (Duzz-pair?)

Regardless of whether this was part of an elaborate scheme or simply a matter of “Pitt was better than Georgia Tech but worse than Notre Dame,” this was the biggest result of a relatively quiet college football week. The Yellow Jackets only had to beat Pitt to clinch an ACC championship berth, and now they’ve been doomed to tiebreaker hell.

Look, I know why you’re subscribed to this newsletter. It’s for detailed ACC championship game scenarios. That’s what the people want. That’s what the people need. So it’s what the people get. Here you go:

So how does that affect the Playoff?

Automatic bids are promised to the top 5 highest-ranked conference champions, and the ACC is one of four power conferences. (Each of which is guaranteed a sitting member on the playoff selection committee, not that that matters, wink-wink).

HOWEVER. There’s a real possibility that the ACC champion could be the sixth-highest rated champion. After all, in the American Conference, Tulane is ranked 24th by the playoff committee. That puts them higher than a variety of potential ACC champions. And while potential Sun Belt champion James Madison was unranked, they’re #24 in the AP Poll and #25 in Bill Connelly’s SP+ ratings — higher than SMU (#26), Virginia (#34), Pitt (#35), Georgia Tech (#36), and Duke (#57.)

Depending on how things break in the ACC, the Dukes really deserve a shot at the Playoff. Although it’s possible Narduzzi has another master scheme up his sleeve that none of us could possibly imagine.

Long story short: The ACC chaos means we’re all Tulane fans. And our friends at Homefield Apparel happen to have an absolutely killer Tulane collection, one of the best in the entire Homefield arsenal, for anybody interested in riding the Green Wave.

I personally own an Angry Wave dad hat — I wore it when they let me ride on the Goodyear Blimp.

But they’ve also got some great gear with Tulane’s festive pelicans. Look at those corduroy baseball pelicans in the image up there! I know they’re baseball guys, but still, I’m sure they’re pulling for the Wave down the stretch.

The play of the week — hell, probably the game of the week, too — came in the first round of the Division II playoffs.

After falling behind 24-0, the Benedict Tigers scored 25 unanswered to beat Wingate, winning on this perfect cross-field lateral for an 88-yard touchdown to receiver Malik Mullins as the clock expired.

I don’t know why the cameraman suddenly decided to bail on the coolest play he’ll ever film, but luckily someone on the sideline captured the final moments of the play. Wingate almost caught Mullins, but he burst through an attempted tackle near the goal line to win the game:

But the thing that caught my eye was, that throw!!!! You never see that type of throw on these desperation plays! Normally, you see wide receivers half-heartedly heaving the ball to nobody. Even in the NFL! And this was a Division II game!

Look at that damn lateral! The receiver-turned-passer pump fakes one defender out of the play, then makes a throw on the run, across his body, 30-40 yards on the fly, hitting Mullins directly in the hands and in stride so he didn’t have to break momentum before scoring the touchdown.

Holy hell. Was that a quarterback?

Sure enough: Yes! The passer was Charles “Tre” Simmons, who spent most of his career as a quarterback, including a spell as a backup QB for Division I McNeese in 2023 before transferring down to Benedict. He was Benedict’s starting QB last year, throwing for 20 touchdowns, but the Tigers went 4-6 and Simmons switched to receiver for his senior season. He caught a touchdown with 3 minutes left to make it a one-possession game, then made the throw of his life to win the game.

It’s the first playoff win ever for Benedict, a historically Black college located a couple of miles northeast of South Carolina’s campus in Columbia. I don’t exactly have a rooting interest in the Division II playoffs … so I guess I’m rooting for the Tigers from here on out.

It just keeps getting funnier to me.

In the first half of Duke’s rivalry win over Bill Belichick’s UNC squad, kicker Todd Pelino missed a 46-yard field goal, but was bailed out because the Tar Heels’ edge crashed too hard and got flagged for roughing the kicker.

In the closing moments of the game, with Duke trailing by one, Pelino lined up for basically the same kick, a 44-yarder to take the lead. But rather than put the game on the leg of their shaky kicker, they called a fake — and UNC’s edge crashed so hard that Pelino ran right around him, setting up the game-winning touchdown:

Fake field goals are really hard! I saw three attempts yesterday, and two were abject disasters. (Missouri State directly lost because of their failed fake; UCLA essentially handed Washington 7 free points when their holder flipped the ball blindly over his head.) But against Special Teams Savant Bill Belichick, it was relatively easy.

Pelino told reporters that it was “the first time in a football game I’ve ever had the ball in my hands.” Although it was his first time carrying the ball, Pelino told reporters that he remembered a critical coaching point: that players should only extend the ball for the goal line in end-of-game situations. This also feels specifically aimed at humiliating Belichick: UNC has lost two separate games this year due to goal line fumbles.

And that wasn’t the only Specifically Aimed At Humiliating Bill Belichick moment of the game either! The Blue Devils also scored a touchdown out of an unusual formation with an offensive lineman split out wide. UNC didn’t recognize that the tight end (lined up as a left tackle) was eligible to receive a pass and left him totally unguarded for a touchdown:

This is famously a formation Belichick repeatedly used against the Ravens in the 2015 playoffs, leading to loud complaints from John Harbaugh. But Belichick’s own team was clearly unprepared for it.

The loss knocks Belichick’s Tar Heels to 4-7 and out of bowl contention. On the one hand, the Tar Heels clearly showed fight and improved after some humiliating performances to open the season; they honestly should have a winning record after a series of mind-boggling close losses. On the other hand: under Mack Brown, the coach UNC fired to bring in Belichick, the Tar Heels made a bowl game every year and beat Duke 5 of 6 times.

🐺 NC State invented a beautiful new football strategy. In the closing minutes of their win against Florida State, they punted the ball off an FSU player’s head, allowing it to ricochet back to the line of scrimmage where the punter was waiting to recover it.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: That’s not a strategy, that’s just a preposterously fluky thing that happened. But just a few plays later, NC State had another punt which they recovered. They’ve invented Infinite Football where you never have to give the ball to your opponent — you just keep pinball punting it off of them until the clock expires.

🍊 Man, I really have no idea what Syracuse is doing. They started freshman lacrosse recruit Joe Filardi at quarterback for the second time this season, and he threw three interceptions (two returned for touchdowns) in a 70-7 loss to Notre Dame. It’s the largest loss in Syracuse football history and the most points that Notre Dame has ever scored against a Division I opponent. I pay a lot of attention to “bad football ideas” and I think starting this poor lacrosse player is the worst football idea I’ve ever seen. They have actual quarterbacks on the roster! They also have a tight end who won a game at QB a few years ago!

🍺 Rice promised free beers to students who attended Saturday’s game against North Texas. The final tally was 1,246 free beers distributed — quite frankly, an upsettingly low number. I feel like I personally would have drunk 1,246 beers if my school had offered them for free at a late-season football game.

⚾️ Northwestern finally won a game at Wrigley Field, beating Minnesota 38-35 on a last-minute field goal. The Wildcats were 0-7 in the not-particularly-Friendly Confines dating back to 1923, with six of those losses coming since 2021. I am begging them to stop playing these games — and they’ll probably listen, since their new stadium in Evanston will be wrapped up next year.