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Just when you thought you had college football all figured out, it hits you like a 300-pound defensive lineman charging in unblocked from your blindside.
Two weeks ago, we saw 5 of the nation’s top 11 teams go down to defeat within hours of each other, including No. 1 Alabama. This week, No. 2 Ohio State bit the dust.
They’re the kind of results that remind us why they wait until the end of the season to start handing out trophies instead of awarding them in mid-October. With half the schedule still to be played, there’s no telling what might happen and how much more things might change.
But what fun is waiting?
Since we don’t have any actual hardware to present, there’s no harm in jumping the gun by honoring the best of the best in the ACC for their achievements during the 1st half of the season.
Offensive Player of the Year
As the highest-rated player in the transfer portal, Cam Ward was already a Heisman Trophy frontrunner before he ever threw his 1st pass for Miami this season. Halfway through his 1 season with the Hurricanes, he’s only added to the hype. The Washington State transfer doesn’t just lead the nation in both passing yards per game (369.8) and touchdown passes (20). His late-game comeback heroics have almost singlehandedly kept Miami undefeated, ranked in the top 10 and in the hunt for its first ACC championship and Playoff Berth.
Defensive Player of the Year
After a breakout sophomore season in which he recorded 7.5 sacks in 2022, Boston College’s Donovan Ezeiruaku all but disappeared last season. He failed to record a sack in 11 of the 12 games he played and only had 2 for the entire year. But he’s bounced back with a vengeance in 2024. Energized by the arrival of new coach Bill O’Brien, The senior edge rusher equaled his sack total from last year in the Eagles’ season-opening win at Florida State. He’s already surpassed his career high with 9, all solo, to rank 2nd nationally. He also has an ACC-leading 11.5 tackles for loss while amassing 43 tackles and a forced fumble.
Offensive Rookie of the Year
Isaac Brown had some big shoes to fill at Louisville after the Cardinals top 2 rushers from last season were taken in the NFL Draft. But the former 3-star prospect has picked up right where Jawhar Jordan and Isaac Guerendo left off. He ran for 123 yards and a touchdown in his college debut against Austin Peay and is averaging 8.6 yards per carry for the season, He’s coming off his best game to date, a 146-yard, 2-touchdown performance in a come-from-behind win at Virginia. Brown is also an effective receiver out of the backfield with 14 catches, 4 of which came 2 weeks ago against SMU.
Defensive Rookie of the Year
Sammy Brown came to Clemson with even higher expectations than Brown. He was a 5-star prospect and the No. 2-rated linebacker in this year’s recruiting class. And while Dabo Swinney has been careful about working him into the lineup on a full-time basis, Brown still ranks 4th on the Tigers in tackles with 20 while recording a pair of pass breakups. He showed his dominating potential in a win against Stanford 2 weeks ago by collecting 2 sacks, 3.5 TFLs and a team-leading 8 tackles. He was recently named one of the nation’s 15 impact freshmen by ESPN, along with the likes of Alabama’s Ryan Williams and Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith.
Breakout player
Desmond Reid wasn’t the best-known transfer to enter the ACC this season. He wasn’t even Pitt’s most heralded arrival from Western Carolina. That honor went to dynamic young offensive coordinator Kade Bell. It didn’t take long, though, for the undersized 5-8, 175-pound running back to start making a name for himself. Along with freshman quarterback Eli Holstein, Bell has helped inject energy into a Panthers offense that has gone from one of the worst in the conference a year ago to one of its best this season. He’s already amassed 494 yards on the ground and 341 as a receiver while accounting for 7 touchdowns with an explosiveness best illustrated by his electric 72-yard sprint on a 4th-and-1 play in Saturday’s win against Cal.
Coach of the Year
Who says you can’t teach old dogs new tricks. Especially old dogs that happen to be former defensive coordinators. But Pat Narduzzi has. Coming off a disastrous 3-9 season with his job potentially on the line, Pat Narduzzi broke the stereotype and got himself off the hot seat by hiring a 31-year-old offensive coordinator and giving him free rein to install an up-tempo spread attack that has helped transform the Panthers from an also-ran to an ACC contender.
Biggest surprise
Narduzzi’s Panthers were picked to finish 13th in the ACC’s preseason poll. Six games into the season, they’re 1 of just 26 remaining undefeated FBS teams, ranked 20th in the nation, off to their best start since Dan Marino was their quarterback and tied for 1st in the ACC. It doesn’t get much more surprising than that.
Biggest disappointment
Florida State is the poster child for how quickly fortunes can turn in college football. In the span of just 7 months, the Seminoles have gone from an undefeated conference champion enraged over being unjustly left out of the 4-team Playoff to an ACC bottom-feeder 2 losses from being eliminated from bowl contention. Florida State’s plummet from the top of the polls into the gutter can be traced directly to coach Mike Novell’s transfer portal decisions, which haven’t gone as well as those of a year ago. The biggest whiff was at quarterback, where DJ Uiagalelei failed to put up more than 21 points in any of his 5 games as a starter before being sidelined with a hand injury. At 1-5 overall (1-4 ACC), FSU is going nowhere fast. Much less to the SEC or Big Ten.
Best game
Miami-Virginia Tech had it all. Friday night national television exclusivity. A star attraction. A back-and-forth game with the potential for a top-10 upset. And, of course, some epic controversy to argue about at the end. We’ll never know who actually came down with Kyron Drones’ Hail Mary heave into the end zone as time expired. Or if the reversal that gave the Hurricanes a wild 38-34 victory was the right or wrong call. But we’ll be talking about it for a long time to come. Especially if Miami goes on to win the conference championship.
Best individual performance
Ward was outstanding in throwing for 343 yards and 4 touchdowns to lead his team from behind in the 4th quarter to beat the Hokies. But he was even better in an even closer call 1 week later at Cal. The star quarterback produced a Heisman-worthy moment by helping the Hurricanes rally from a 25-point 2nd half deficit for a 39-38 victory that spoiled the Bears’ home ACC debut. Ward threw for 437 yards – 382 of which came in the final 18 minutes while leading Miami on scoring drives of 75, 75, 70 and 92 yards to produce the 2nd-biggest comeback in school history. The only downside of his performance, which was punctuated by the game-winning touchdown pass with less than a minute remaining, is that because of the late starting time hardly anyone on the East Coast was awake to see it.
Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.
