ACC football grades for 2025 season: Miami meets expectations, UNC fails in Year 1 of Bill Belichick era
Grading every ACC football team, with Virginia getting an A and Florida State getting a D
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10 min read
The 2025 college football season in the ACC was chaotic and interesting, all the way to the drama of whether the conference would be shut out of the College Football Playoff, but entertainment should not be mistaken for success. Yes, it was a good year for Miami, and there were certainly individual success stories up and down the conference standings, but the absence of strength when it comes to the ACC's traditional powers made it a tough year to claim supremacy on a national scale.
The outlook in August suggested a return form with Clemson, Miami and Florida State all inside the top 15 of the preseason AP Top 25 poll. Week 1 wins for Florida State against Alabama and for Miami against Notre Dame backed up the notion that the ACC might finally have its football powers all running hot at the same time for the first time in nearly a decade. Unfortunately, the postseason review of ACC football does not match that preseason outlook or early season excitement. In fact, 2025 marked the ninth straight season that the ACC has failed to get Clemson, Florida State and Miami to all win at least eight games in the same year. Clemson's drop from playoff to the Pinstripe Bowl and Florida State's fall from top 10 to not bowling at all dampen what should be legitimate excitement for one of the best seasons Miami has had as an ACC member.
In the absence of Clemson and Florida State did emerge some great stories, like Tony Elliott breaking through at Virginia with 10 wins and Georgia Tech racing out to an 8-0 start and a top 10 ranking. Recent ACC title contenders like SMU and Louisville were in the mix again, and Duke shrugged off a 1-3 nonconference record to take care of business against ACC competition and eventually win the league.
If we are grading the conference as a whole, the phrase "C's get degrees" might apply here. The ACC was much more "C" than "A" when it comes to a barely passing grade that acknowledges both the failures of the programs at the top and the successes of the schools who broke through in their absence.
More conference grades for 2025 season: Big Ten | SEC | Big 12
Now let's get into some team-by-team grades for the 2025 season:
Boston College
Expectations were not high for Boston College in 2025, but the 2-10 showing falls even well below the thoughts that the Eagles might flirt with a bowl game. The team opened with a win against FCS Fordham and closed with a victory at Syracuse but lost 10 straight games in between. The margins were not always large -- three one-score losses -- but the defense was usually a major problem, and Boston College finished the year ranked last in the ACC and 129th nationally giving up 433.3 yards per game. Grade: F
Cal
By the end of the year, Cal had technically exceeded preseason expectations with a 7-5 record. The Bears beat Louisville and SMU in the final month of the season, and when you add in the early season victory against Minnesota and the highlights from freshman phenom quarterback Jaron Keawe Sagapolutele, there's definitely things to be proud of this season. But there were also lowlights, like staggering performances in losses to San Diego State and Stanford that prompted a coaching change and the hire of Tosh Lupoi. Even with the coaching turnover, there was enough good to award a solid grade for Cal's 2025 campaign. Grade: B
Clemson
If we are grading Clemson based on where the Tigers stack up in the ACC, then Tigers had a fairly average season. The problem is we are grading Clemson based on the program standard and expectations heading into the season. Offensively, success would come and go, and defensively, they were talented but had a couple games where that group could not get the stops it needed to win. There is some credit for winning four straight games to close the season, but it's a sub-standard year that gets a sub-standard grade. Grade: D
Duke
The Duke Blue Devils won the ACC championship, and no one can ever take that away from them. But the team also lost at UConn and had some missed opportunities in losses to Tulane and Georgia Tech. If you flip just a couple of those results, this team is not just ACC champions but also getting to ready to participate in the College Football Playoff for the first time in program history. As it is, no one in Durham will complain about the school's first ACC football championship since 1989, which will always make 2025 a successful season. Grade: B
Florida State
Unfortunately the 2025 season will be defined by the colossal crash out going from top 10 in the country with a win against Alabama to being 3-4 with a loss to Stanford in less than a month. Mike Norvell got a midseason vote of confidence and an end-of-year endorsement for 2026, but the Seminoles didn't have much of a spark with losses to Clemson, NC State and Florida in the final month of the season to miss a bowl game by one win. Grade: D
Georgia Tech
The Yellow Jackets were on the cusp of a historic season, racing out to an 8-0 start with favorable matchups the rest of the way and jump-starting the conversation of a potential College Football Playoff appearance. But then the Yellow Jackets lost three of four and landed with a bid to the Pop-Tarts Bowl instead. The biggest issue here would be the defense, which gave up 48 and 42 points in the two conference losses that cost the Yellow Jackets a shot to play for the ACC championship and, in turn, a shot at the CFP as well. Grade: B
Louisville
On the morning of Nov. 9, Louisville was 7-1 and ranked 15th in the country. The only loss on the season to that point was to Virginia in overtime, and the Cards had already pocketed wins against now-playoff teams Miami and JMU. Then, on Nov. 9, they lost a stunner to Cal, falling at home as a double-digit favorite, and proceeded to lose the next two games as well. A 41-0 blasting of Kentucky cleansed the palette a little bit, but that three-game losing streak in November soured what was shaping up to be a another year of ACC title contention for Jeff Brohm. Grade: C
Miami
Miami made some program history in 2025 that is worth celebrating. Mario Cristobal has the Hurricanes making their first-ever College Football Playoff in Year 4 of his tenure, and for the first time as an ACC member (since 2004), Miami has put together back-to-back 10-win seasons. But if we are looking at 2025 through a vacuum, then Miami met most preseason expectations with its performance. The Hurricanes winning 10 games is about on par with what was expected from the roster, and a top-10 preseason ranking was fulfilled finishing 10th in the rankings at the end of the season. It was a great team that will now have a chance to prove it's ultimate value in the CFP, but given the talent on this roster, this should be a "meets expectations" grade for Cristobal's Canes. Grade: B
NC State
Joe Ovies, of the Ovies & Giglio Podcast, succinctly defined the NC State football experience in the Dave Doeren era as a couple games that make you go, "hell yeah brother," and a couple of games that make you go, "what the [bleep] was that?" NC State beat top-10 Georgia Tech in the same building where it lost to a Virginia Tech team that had just fired its coach. The Wolfpack beat Virginia in a game that wasn't a conference game yet looked non-competitive against Notre Dame and Miami. It's a wide range of results on the year that come out in the wash to average NC State football season. Grade: C
North Carolina
Preseason expectations had the Tar Heels between seven and eight wins against a favorable schedule, so the 4-8 showing was certainly a disappointment to kick off the Bill Belichick era. North Carolina's offense was mostly ineffective against FBS competition, and the common thread across three one-score losses was self-inflicted wounds. Nationally, the Tar Heels ranked No. 121 in scoring offense (19.3 points per game), No. 131 in total offense (228.8 yards per game) and No. 109 in penalty yards (62.6 yards per game). When costly turnovers, penalties and offensive execution are the biggest issues, it's hard to call the season a success. There was good work done in Belichick's Year 1, and it's factually true that flipping a couple of those one-score losses makes UNC a bowl team, but the quality was far below expectations for any power conference team. Grade: F
Pittsburgh
The midseason revelation of quarterback Mason Heintschel really saved Pitt's season. The Panthers lost the Backyard Brawl against West Virginia and dropped the ACC opener to Louisville, then Heintschel and the high-powered offense ripped off five straight wins where the team averaged 40.0 points per game in that span. Water found its level a little bit with late season defeats to Notre Dame and Miami, but all in all a pretty good season for Pat Narduzzi in Year 11 leading the program. Grade: B
SMU
This was probably a better team than the record suggests, particularly when you consider the weight of the upset loss to Cal in the regular-season finale. That loss bounced SMU from the ACC Championship Game and a shot at making the College Football Playoff for a second straight season, so yes, the difference between 8-4 and 9-3 is pretty massive when it comes to a final grade for the season. As it stands, the eight-win campaign qualifies as "meets expectations" and gets a grade appropriate with that kind of result. Grade: C
Stanford
The expectations were not high for a Frank Reich-led Stanford team that had to play a season while Andrew Luck picked a new coach to lead the program. The preseason outlook called for three or four wins, and the Cardinal came through with a 4-8 record. What stands out, though, is the 3-5 mark against ACC opponents where Stanford deserves credit for being opportunistic in home games to finish one game below .500 in league play. Grade: C
Syracuse
The Orange closed the season with eight straight losses, all by double digits, as the offense never recovered from the season-ending injury to Steve Angeli. That early season win against Clemson, the game where Angeli was hurt, proved to be the highlight of the season, and things just spiraled into more and more frustrating defeats as the season went along. Things truly bottomed out at the end of November with a 70-7 loss to Notre Dame and then a 22-point loss at home to a Boston College team that entered the season on a 10-game losing streak. Grade: F
Virginia
Offseason investments paid off not just with a breakthrough season for Tony Elliott but one of the best seasons in school history. There is obvious disappointment from falling just short of an ACC championship and the College Football Playoff after an overtime defeat to Duke in Charlotte, but this is still just the second 10-win season in program history. Early season wins against Florida State and at Louisville built the confidence that the Wahoos could hang with anyone in the league, and even though the wins weren't always pretty, the winning DNA was real. That's a credit to Elliott and his staff, getting a team with heavy transfer influence on the same page to put together a historic season. Grade: A
Virginia Tech
No one had specifically penciled Virginia Tech in as an ACC title contender, but the Hokies were expected to be a solid bowl team and one of the better squads of the Brent Pry era. After an 0-3 start that saw Virginia Tech lose by an average of 18.7 points per game, the school decided to fire Pry, and while there were a couple of good highlights showcasing the players' resiliency (wins at NC State and in overtime against Cal) this was not a successful season by any measure. The future looks bright with James Franklin taking over, but the final grade for 2025 is not a passing one. Grade: F
Wake Forest
Oddsmakers set the over-under win total for Wake Forest at 4.5, so yes, going 8-4 in Year 1 of the Jake Dickert era would quality of far exceeding preseason expectations. The Demon Deacons not only made a bowl game, but had it locked up by mid-November thanks to upset wins against conference title contenders SMU and Virginia. Outside of a lopsided loss at Florida State, there was not a game that Wake Forest was out-classed in all season despite some significant roster and coaching turnover. The school has made just three football hires in the 21st century, and early returns suggest Dickert could be just as much of a home run as Dave Clawson and Jim Grobe before him. Grade: A
