Week 3 is complete. How did the ACC’s ranked football teams perform?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
Week 3 of college football brought out some big matchups in the ACC, including the first ranked-on-ranked contest.
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The conference entered the week with four teams ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 poll — and it came away with only with three afterward.
No. 5 Miami struggled in its first true test against a competent team, pulling off a gritty win to open the week. Then, SMU and Louisville went down to the wire, with the Cardinals coming out on top.
Finally, Tony Elliott was not doused in mayonnaise after West Virginia upset his Virginia Cavaliers in Charlotte. Virginia dropped out of the poll after the rest of the non-ACC matchups went chalk. The Cavaliers have been ranked at No. 25 for two weeks, with West Virginia not even receiving votes in the most-recent iteration of the Top 25.
Here’s what went down among the ACC’s ranked Top 25 teams:
No. 6 Miami (3-0) extended its perfect season with a 33-20 win over Wake Forest (2-1) on Friday night in Winston-Salem, led by quarterback Darian Mensah’s historic performance. After Ole Miss pounded LSU, it displaced Indiana, Miami and Ohio State down a position each.
Mensah started the game with 24 consecutive pass completions, an ACC record.. The former Duke quarterback finished the night by completing 30 of 34 passes for 220 yards and three touchdowns.
The Miami defense picked up four stops in the final quarter to stop Wake Forest’s upset bid.
Former North Carolina QB Gio Lopez led Wake Forest with 312 passing yards and three touchdowns.
Despite getting banged up, the Hurricanes weathered the threat to stay perfect in ACC play.
No. 16 Louisville (3-0) upset No. 22 SMU (2-1), 41-31, after a huge second-half rally from the Cardinals, and the teams essentially flip-flopped in the rankings, with Louisville rising from No. 23 to No. 16, and the Mustangs dropping from No. 16 to No. 22.
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Louisville scored 27 second-half points to push the lower-ranked ACC team past the higher-ranked Mustangs in a run-heavy game for both teams. There were eight lead changes in the contest before a late touchdown run ended the scoring efforts.
The Cardinals’ Keyjuan Brown ran for a career high 163 yards and two touchdowns in the win. Meanwhile, SMU’s Kendrick Raphael rushed for a career-best 197 yards and added three rushing touchdowns.
It will offer little solace for NC State fans after their stunning loss at Vanderbilt, but the Wolfpack’s CJ Bailey wasn’t the only ACC quarterback to make a costly mistake. SMU’s Kevin Jennings was stripped of the football just shy of the goal line with 2:43 left on the clock. A potential game-winning touchdown ended up being a touchback after the fumble bounced out of the end zone.
Virginia (2-1), which had been No. 25, fell to unranked West Virginia (3-0) in the Duke’s Mayo Classic on Saturday night after the Mountaineers’ big second half in Charlotte.
Virginia fell out of the voting entirely, while West Virginia received the third most voting points among schools remaining unranked.
The Cavaliers took an early lead but the defense couldn’t stop West Virginia late, which racked up 17 points in the span of one quarter, and lost, 38-27.
Virginia’s Beau Pribula threw for 197 yards and two touchdowns, but his counterpart —West Virginia’s Michael Hawkins accounted for 314 yards of total offense and five touchdowns. Hawkins willed the Mountaineers to the win over the ACC foe.
Duke, the defending ACC champion, moved to 3-0 this week and started receiving some votes, joining fellow ACC schools Virginia Tech and Pitt among schools receiving votes.
The Blue Devils handled Stanford with ease at home in Week 3.
This story was originally published September 20, 2026 at 9:00 AM with the headline “Week 3 is complete. How did the ACC’s ranked football teams perform?.”
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