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Never underestimate the power of the internet.
Or the Calgorithm that has taken it over.
The phenomenon created by fans of the ACC’s new West Coast entity has taken over Twitter and injected the Bears’ once unassuming program into the forefront of the college football conversation.
It started with the playful trolling of former Pac-12 rivals who left them for dead before finding a new life in the ACC and quickly evolved into creative taunts, most based around Cal’s “woke” reputation, toward future opponents.
After a Week 2 upset of Auburn, the Calgorithm set its sights on an even higher purpose.
Accounts with handles such as OskiFan, Admiral Bear and Marshawn’s Golf Cart began tagging influential national media members to gain allies in their effort to convince College GameDay to come to Berkeley for the first time ever.
And it worked.
At halftime of Saturday night’s epic Alabama-Georgia game, ESPN announced that its popular pregame show will originate from Cal next week prior to the Bears’ game against No. 7 Miami.
https://twitter.com/CollegeGameDay/status/1840205379860389955
Buckle up, folks. If Cal fans bring the same kind of energy to a broadcast that starts at 6 am local time that they’ve exhibited on social media, the results will be epic. And unlike nothing College GameDay has seen before.
The decision to give in to social media pressure and elevate a nontraditional program with national attention is sure to spark plenty of overreaction. While we wait for that to happen, here are 10 things I’m absolutely overreacting to after Week 5 in and around the ACC.
10. After further review, things worked out pretty well for the ACC in Miami
OK, so maybe the fix wasn’t in. Or was it?
Even if you believe the ACC got it right by overturning what was eventually ruled a game-winning Virginia Tech touchdown on the final play of Friday’s game at No. 8 Miami, you have to admit that the way things went down smells a little fishy.
The reversal felt almost inevitable once the officials on the field sent the call and the outcome to the command center in Charlotte. The ACC could ill afford a Miami loss to an unranked opponent. That would have knocked the Hurricanes out of the national top 12 and potentially put the conference in danger of missing out on an automatic Playoff bid.
It would be wrong to question anybody’s motivation or character in this instance. Especially since the explanation given by the ACC for its decision to overturn the call – that the ball made contact with a Miami player while part of his body was out of bounds before possession was established – is certainly plausible.
At the same time, it doesn’t take a conspiracy theorist to deduce that the ACC greatly benefitted from the way things turned out.
9. A Royal transgression
Speaking of conspiracy theorists, they naturally came out of the woodwork as soon as the call was reversed and the Hurricanes were declared the winner. Predictably, they vented their anger on social media.
Much of the outrage, as could be expected, came from Virginia Tech fans unhappy at the perception that their team had been wronged. And that a victory rightfully earned on the field was snatched away by a bunch of guys in suits with an agenda.
Among them was Eddie Royal. The former Hokies wide receiver fired off a series of accusatory posts, including one punctuated by an expletive that asked “Why play the game if it’s already determined who they want to win?”
Why play the game if it's already determined who they want to win…bullshit!!
— Eddie Royal (@EddieRoyalWR) September 28, 2024
Royal, like the rest of us, is entitled to his opinion. But he’s different in this case because he’s an analyst for the ACC Network and therefore someone directly affiliated with the league. As such, he should have kept his thoughts to himself.
It was incredibly unprofessional of him to question the conference’s integrity by accusing it of intentionally rigging the outcome of a game. At the very worst, it’s a fireable offense. At the very least, his actions should be subject to stiff, public sanction.
8. Pry-ing defeat from the jaws of victory
Right or wrong, the controversial ending could easily have been avoided had Hokies coach Brent Pry done a better job of managing the clock at the end of both halves.
In the first, he cost his team 3 points by prematurely calling time out before a 57-yard field goal attempt by John Love. The Hokies’ kicker made the boot to expand Tech’s lead to 24-14. But because of Pry’s decision to stop the clock with 25 seconds remaining instead of letting it tick down further, there was enough time remaining for Miami’s Andres Borregales to answer back with a 56-yarder heading into halftime.
Then at the end of the game, Pry let nearly a minute drain off the clock by not calling timeouts that would have given Kyron Drones and his offense at least a few extra plays to get into the end zone without having to resort to a Hail Mary prayer at the end.
Miami coach Mario Cristobal is widely considered to be one of the worst clock managers in college football, but this time it was his opponent that gave the master class on how to throw away a chance at winning. It’s no wonder Pry is now 1-10 in games decided by a touchdown or less. Including an 0-3 mark this season.
7. The irreplaceable Mr. Castellanos
FanDuel sportsbook lists 84 players with odds of winning this year’s Heisman Trophy. Thomas Castellanos isn’t among them. This is not to say that the Boston College quarterback should be considered a candidate for college football’s top award. But after Saturday’s game against Western Kentucky, a case can be made that no power conference player is more important to his team as he is to the Eagles.
Castellanos has been the centerpiece of BC’s resurgence over the past 2 seasons and the driving force behind the team’s strong start under new coach Bill O’Brien. He threw for 729 yards and 10 touchdowns while running for another score in the Eagles’ first 4 games. But he was sidelined against the Hilltoppers because of an injury suffered the previous week while leading his team to a come-from-behind win against Michigan State.
BC’s offense suffered without him, managing only 285 total yards against a Group of 5 defense. While the Eagles were able to rally from a 13-point 4th quarter deficit to win 21-20, their defense had more to do with the rally than replacement quarterback Grayson James. Both of the late touchdowns that pulled the game out were the product of short fields set up by turnovers – an interception by Kam Arnold and a strip sack by star edge rusher Donovan Ezeiruaku.
With ACC road games coming up in the next 2 weeks, BC is going to need a healthy Castellanos back in its lineup to have any shot at continuing the momentum it has built through the early part of the season.
6. Who is Wake Forest’s trainer? Mr. Miyagi?
For those who don’t have Netflix or are too young to remember the movie “The Karate Kid,” Mr. Miyagi is the mysterious old guy who in addition to being a great martial arts instructor knows an ancient Okinawan secret that cures all physical ailments. All he has to do is clap his hands, rub them together a few times and place them on the affected body part and like magic, the pain amazingly disappears.
He must have been in the Deacons’ locker room at halftime. Either that or Demond Claiborne is the fastest healer in human history.
The star running back was taken off the field on an injury cat after suffering an injury on a run late in the first half. It was subsequently reported that Claiborne had suffered a dislocated kneecap. But when the second half began, he was back on the sideline, still in uniform. And minutes later, on a 4th-and-1 play, he burst off right tackle for a 60-yard touchdown.
Claiborne’s quick recovery was remarkable. But because Wake’s defense could have used a little healing of its own, it wasn’t enough to prevent a 41-38 loss to Louisiana that drops the Deacons to 1-3. With all 3 losses coming at home.
5. Maybe that loss to BYU wasn’t so bad, after all
We were all quick to write SMU off after what appeared to be a lackluster 18-15 home loss to BYU in Week 2. A game in which the supposedly potent Mustangs offense failed to score a touchdown and mustered only 261 yards of total offense.
That’s why they’re called overreactions.
Right?
Welp, maybe it’s time to reassess that loss and SMU’s prospects as they embark on their debut season as an ACC member.
BYU, as it turns out, is pretty good. The Cougars are 5-0, ranked 17th in this week’s AP poll and are sitting atop the Big 12 standings. The Mustangs, meanwhile, have done a little galloping of their own in the 2 games since their only loss.
With Kevin Jennings replacing Preston Stone at quarterback, they hung 66 points on cross-town rival TCU before adding to Florida State’s woes with a 42-16 beatdown of the Seminoles in their ACC debut. Rhett Lashlee’s team heads to Louisville with a full head of steam for a showdown this week that will go a long way toward determining which is a conference contender and which will spend the rest of the season playing for a nice warm weather bowl trip.
4. Cam’s Heisman moment
Lost in the commotion over the controversial conclusion of Friday’s Miami-Virginia Tech game was another Heisman-worth performance by the Hurricanes’ Cam Ward. The transfer quarterback didn’t have his best game, with a pair of interceptions and a lost fumble marring his performance. But his stat line was still as impressive as always.
Ward completed 24-of-38 passes for 343 yards and 4 touchdowns. He also ran for a score. But beyond the stat sheet, he made a string of winning plays on a clutch 10-play drive that produced the go-ahead touchdown with just under 2 minutes remaining.
First, he converted a 4th-and-3 play from midfield, even though his receiver Xavier Restrepo slipped and was lying flat on his back at the time of the catch. Then after a bad snap, he still managed to stay composed, pick the ball up and hand it to running back Damien Martinez for a positive gain.
Did we just witness Cam Ward's Heisman moment? pic.twitter.com/iEs7YGcCMM
— Sidelines Sports Network™ (@Sidelines_SN) September 28, 2024
His pièce de résistance, however, came on the next-to-last play of the drive when in the grasp of a Hokies defender and in danger of taking a sack that could have short-circuited the possession, he somehow found a way to get the ball to tight end Riley Williams for a 26-yard gain to the 1. It was a moment reminiscent of Lamar Jackson’s Heisman Hurdle at Syracuse and produced a highlight that will undoubtedly be replayed many times. Including a ceremony he’ll be attending at the Downtown Athletic Club in New York this December.
3. Mack’s retirement clock is ticking faster
As if giving up 70 points in a loss to James Madison wasn’t bad enough, now Mack Brown and his North Carolina Tar Heels will have to try and recover from an even more heart-wrenching defeat – a loss to rival Duke in which they squandered a 20-point lead in the final 20 minutes.
Unlike last week, when a downtrodden Brown set off a postgame firestorm with hints of retirement, Brown’s team was the only one melting down after this one. The Hall of Fame coach vowed to get back to work and pull the Tar Heels through their adversity. But there are signs that the problems UNC is experiencing might be beyond fixing.
After the game, Duke’s Manny Diaz suggested that Brown’s team might have quit on him.
“It felt like we got stronger as the game went on,” Diaz said. “And it felt like they, from my vantage point, went the other direction.”
Saturday’s defeat was Brown’s first in 6 meetings with the Blue Devils since returning to Chapel Hill and the first time since 1989 that one of his UNC teams has lost possession of the Victory Bell that goes to the winner of the annual Duke-UNC game. It also intensified speculation that the winningest coach in school history will be stepping down at the end of the season. If not before.
2. From an undefeated season to the unemployment line?
Has a coach ever gone from an undefeated season to the unemployment line in 1 season?
Mike Norvell says stay tuned.
Florida State’s plummet from the top of the ACC to the gutter continued on Saturday with a 42-16 embarrassment at the hands of SMU. As bad as the beatdown was, it might not even be rock bottom. At 1-5 with Clemson, Notre Dame and Miami still to play, it will take a miracle just to gain bowl eligibility.
A big part of the Seminoles’ digression can be traced to Novell’s transfer portal decisions, which haven’t gone as well as those of a year ago. The biggest whiff was at quarterback. Norvell finally pulled the plug on DJ Uiagalelei after his 3rd interception Saturday, which was returned for an 82-yard touchdown. But at this point, it doesn’t matter who plays quarterback.
Take away last year’s 13-0 regular season and Norvell’s record at FSU is just 19-21. It’s a good thing he signed that newly extended contract with the security blanket of a massive buyout. But at a school that has such high regard for its place on the college football chain and even more incentive to remain among the nation’s elite, not even that might be enough to save him if things continue going South.
1. Karma is a … well, you know
Don’t mess with karma. It will eventually bite you right where you sit.
It’s a painful lesson Norvell and the entire FSU athletic community learned in Dallas on Saturday. The Seminoles, you’ll remember, were among the 3 ACC schools that voted against SMU’s entry into the league. The lawsuit against the conference spelled out the reason for the school’s objection in no uncertain terms:
“Simply stated, rather than improve its football media profile, the ACC consciously chose to diminish it, along with undermining the ACC’s ‘strength of schedule’ potential” by adding the Mustangs as a new member.
The only thing that made Saturday’s rout any more karmically perfect is that it came in SMU’s first-ever conference game in front of a raucous crowd that included former President George W. Bush.
Touchè, Noles. You asked for it.
Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.
