Greg: UNC Football Improving, ACC Imploding

The calamity that has been the 2025 North Carolina football season has fueled an insular approach to the sport in the Tar Heel community, and for good reason. Whether or not the surrounding neighborhood is thriving is irrelevant when your own structure is swaying in the wind due to an unstable foundation.

After an initial month of the season in which UNC was blown out by three Power 4 opponents, followed by an eruption of dissatisfaction among disgruntled parties associated with the program, the de-escalation that has occurred in recent weeks has brought about a sense of normalcy. The Tar Heels had an opportunity in the final minutes to beat California on the road in an ACC After Dark contest and then upset No. 14 Virginia before breaking through against Syracuse for their first ACC and Power 4 victory of the season.

Three weeks of improved play constitutes a trend. The act of winning alone was enough to offer a brief reprieve for a ballyhooed season that had gone off the tracks shortly after it began. That ceasefire of sorts provided a chance to emerge from the Carolina silo and peek around the rest of the league for signs of life. As it turns out, there is not much to find.

The first College Football Playoff rankings were announced on Tuesday and the Cavaliers represented the lone ACC team to make the initial playoff projection, based solely on their position atop the league standings. It also marked the first time in the 12 years of the CFP era that an ACC team did not rank in the Top 10 of the initial rankings.

Give Tony Elliott and his Virginia team credit for a quality program revival this season, but the Hoos are not a team capable of competing for the national championship. The Cavaliers rank 43^rd in both primary advanced metrics ratings (SP+/FEI). There are more noteworthy ACC teams – Louisville (7-1, 4-1 ACC) ranks No. 15 in the CFP rankings, followed by No. 17 Georgia Tech (8-1, 5-1 ACC), No. 18 Miami (6-2, 2-2 ACC) and No. 24 Pittsburgh (7-2, 5-1 ACC) – although Virginia is the lone undefeated team in league play at 5-0.

It’s also relevant that Duke (5-3, 4-1 ACC) and Virginia have the easiest remaining schedules of the conference contenders. There’s a legitimate possibility that the winner of the Duke-Virginia game on Nov. 15 will play in the ACC Championship Game in December. ESPN’s Football Power Index projections give Virginia a 31.6% chance of winning the ACC title, followed by Georgia Tech at 21.7% and Louisville at 19.0%.

The only ACC team ranked in the Top 25 of both SP+ and FEI is Miami, which somehow finds new ways to fall short of expectations under head coach Mario Cristobal. Although, to be fair to the former Miami letterman, his program has consistently underperformed since Larry Coker’s fourth-ranked Hurricanes lost in Chapel Hill on Oct. 30, 2004.

The lack of national relevance for ACC football is stunning considering the league’s success initiative that was implemented ahead of the 2024 season. An ACC member that makes the College Football Playoff earns $4 million. That total increases to $8 million for a quarterfinal appearance, $14 million for a semifinal appearance and $20 million for a national title game appearance. Clemson and SMU each earned $4 million for their CFP participation in 2024.

Fifteen of the ACC’s 17 football programs rank outside ESPN’s FPI Top 25. From one perspective, the situation is ripe for a team to elevate its status into the CFP conversation (Virginia). That certainly was part of UNC’s calculus in paying Bill Belichick $10 million last offseason, although that plan is a work in progress.

From another perspective, the current relevance of ACC football raises the question as to the purpose of recent expansion. In 1991, the ACC invited Florida State to join the league after the Seminoles reeled off four consecutive double-digit win seasons on the gridiron. In 2003, the ACC invited Virginia Tech and Miami to join after those two programs combined to win 104 football games in the previous five years. A case can be made for the additions of Syracuse and Pittsburgh in 2013 and Louisville in 2014, although the acquisitions of Stanford, Cal and SMU in 2023 were retroactive adds of desperation.

It’s not just a football problem, either. The ACC earned just three at-large invites to the NCAA Basketball Tournament last spring, which marked the conference’s lowest percentage of NCAAT participants since the event expanded to 32 teams in 1975. To add insult to injury, Duke was the lone ACC team to advance past the first round.

The good news for Belichick and Co. is that UNC’s remaining strength of schedule ranks 74^th nationally without a Top-25 opponent on the horizon. It’s a bit premature to start talking about a bowl bid – FPI gives the Tar Heels a 10.6% chance of winning six games – but the opportunity exists, both over the next month and in the years to come.