COLLEGE FOOTBALL WEEK FIVE:
Duke, ECU, NC State, UNC Pembroke (D2)
Among DG’s ACC/NC “Fun Facts & Shout-Outs”
By David Glenn
North Carolina Sports Network
(last updated Sept. 29, 2025)
While the focus of our “This Week In College Football” show is forward-looking as often as possible, we always take a glance back at the previous weekend in college football, too, and sometimes we’ll offer some quick mentions to those making impactful headlines on the gridiron, especially in the Atlantic Coast Conference and/or across North Carolina.
With that in mind, below are our Week Five “Fun Facts and Shout-Outs,” brought to you by our good friends at Jimmy’s bar and King Neptune restaurant in Wrightsville Beach.
Jimmy’s has a full bar, nightly drink specials and live music 365 days a year(!). (It’s a great place to watch a game, too.) Right next door, King Neptune has become one of the best restaurants in the entire greater Wilmington area.
Week Five “Fun Fact #1”
There is a prominent Division Two program, Valdosta State in Georgia, that had gone 34 years — that’s since 1991, through 395 consecutive games! — without being shut out. The Blazers are a four-time D2 national champion, most recently in 2018, under Kerwin Bell, who’s now the head coach at Western Carolina in the FCS ranks.
So, why would we bring up an out-of-state D2 program in our Fun Facts segment here on the North Carolina Sports Network?
Well, last Saturday, under third-year head coach Mark Hall and third-year defensive coordinator Colin Neely, UNC Pembroke went to Valdosta State and blanked the nationally ranked Blazers, 31-0, on their home field, ending that program’s 34-year, no-shutout streak.
Hall, who previously served as a successful head coach at Chowan, another Division Two program here in North Carolina, is well on his way to his fifth straight winning season in his five years as a head coach.
Meanwhile, the journey of Neely, the Braves’ standout defensive coordinator, provides us with a Fun Fact within this Fun Fact: During his playing days, Neely was a star defensive end in the Big Ten, at Michigan State, where he competed under a decorated defensive coordinator named Pat Narduzzi, who is now the head coach of the ACC’s Pitt Panthers.
UNC Pembroke, which didn’t even field a football program until 2007, deservedly entered the D2 rankings this week for the first time this season. The 4-1 Braves are #24 or #25, depending on the poll, and they would love to make a run at their program’s best-ever season, which came in 2016, when they finished 10-2 and #13 in the final coaches poll of that campaign.
This week, UNCP is the only one of our state’s 32 NCAA football programs that is nationally ranked, and at this point the Braves are favored to win their league, which is called “Conference Carolinas.” If they pull that off, they will earn that league’s automatic bid to the Division Two football playoffs, which this year is growing to a 32-team bracket.
#1—Shout-out to NC State running back Daylan “Hollywood” Smothers. If you go by “Hollywood,” it’s not easy to live up to your nickname, but Smothers is doing exactly that this season with the Wolfpack.
Entering October, Smothers was averaging 114 rushing yards per game, with 570 yards on an ACC-best 96 attempts. That comes out to about six yards per carry, which is an outstanding number, especially in the middle or latter part of the season.
Smothers’ 114 rushing yards per game are sixth nationally, third among Power Four players and head-and-shoulders above every other player in the ACC.
By the way, just as we celebrate home-grown college stars here at the North Carolina Sports Network, we also celebrate those who may have started their college career elsewhere, only to return to the Bold North State.
Smothers is a perfect example of that. A four-star prospect from West Charlotte High School, he originally signed with Oklahoma, but he transferred to NC State prior to the 2024 season, after redshirting during his single season with the Sooners. Smothers was an effective backup for the Wolfpack last year, and as a starter this season, he’s putting up All-ACC-type numbers.
#2—Shout-out to Duke running back Nate Sheppard. A true freshman from near New Orleans, he has emerged at midseason as one of the most promising newcomers in the entire ACC.
Sheppard, who’s 5-foot-10 and 200 pounds, enrolled at Duke in January, so he would have the benefit of going through spring practice. He opened the season third or fourth on the Blue Devils’ depth chart at running back, but with each passing week it has become clear that he’s the Devils’ most electrifying player at that position, even as a true freshman.
After carrying the ball only a handful of times in Duke’s first two games, he had 75 yards on just five carries in his homecoming game of sorts, when Duke visited Tulane in New Orleans. That eye-opening performance led to additional playing time, as you might guess.
Then Sheppard had 14 carries for 61 yards in Duke’s win over NC State, and he followed that up during his collegiate break-out game last week, with 15 carries for 168 yards and two touchdowns in the Blue Devils’ 38-3 annihilation of Syracuse. Sheppard’s performance against the Orange led to both the ACC’s Running Back of the Week and Rookie of the Week honors.
#3—Shout-out to East Carolina head coach Blake Harrell (the team’s former defensive coordinator), his brand-new defensive coordinator Josh Aldridge and the entire Pirates defense after their 28-6 victory last Thursday night over Army.
The Black Knights run a variation of the triple-option offense, and it’s an absolute headache to prepare for, simply because it’s so different than most of what college defenses face on a week-to-week basis. About 11 months ago, up in West Point, Army possessed the ball for more than 37 minutes against the Pirates and dominated on the scoreboard, too, during what became a 45-28 victory for the Knights.
This time, in Greenville, ECU limited Army to only 12 first downs and 290 total yards in that impressive victory at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium, as the defensive stars included sixth-year senior safety Teagan Wilk, fifth-year senior linebacker Ryheem Craig and sophomore safety Ja’Marley Riddle.
So far this season, ECU leads the American Conference in scoring defense, at only 13 points per game.
#4—Shout-out to Duke head coach Manny Diaz (another defensive guy), his second-year defensive coordinator Jonathan Patke and the entire Blue Devils defense after their 38-3 shellacking of Syracuse at the Dome in upstate New York on Saturday.
That game was so lopsided that the final 35-point margin matched the Orange’s worst home loss since they joined the ACC in 2013.
As discussed on last week’s show, the Orange were coming off their huge win over Clemson at Death Valley, but they had lost their big-arm, gun-slinging new quarterback, Notre Dame transfer Steve Angeli, to a torn Achilles in that game.
Syracuse’s backup QB, LSU transfer Rickie Collins, is a completely different type of athlete, someone likely to use completely different parts of the playbook, and he hadn’t played much at either LSU or Syracuse, so that lack of video to study likely complicated the Blue Devils’ game preparation on defense last week.
Nevertheless, Diaz and Patke — who have known each other for more than a decade and worked together previously at Mississippi State and Miami — put together another wonderful game plan, and the Blue Devils executed it to near-perfection, forcing three turnovers and limiting the Orange to only 314 yards and a single field goal.
Duke has not been great on defense overall this season, but that win at Syracuse was an enormous step in the right direction.
Last, but certainly not least …
#5—Shout-out to East Carolina’s backup holder, 5-foot-8, 150-pound Kyler Pearson, for his huge special-teams play in the Pirates’ 28-6 victory over Army in last week’s Thursday night ESPN game.
Pearson is a sixth-year senior who has played almost exclusively on special teams during his entire college career, and ECU is his fourth university, after previous stops at Kansas, Tennessee-Martin and Oklahoma State.
In Greenville, Pearson is a graduate student walk-on, which you don’t see very often, but he earned his way onto the team’s depth chart as the Pirates’ #1 punt returner. He’s also the backup holder.
With ECU nursing a 21-6 lead over Army in the fourth quarter, the Pirates lined up for a field goal but faked it. Pearson took a purposefully high snap, darted through a beautifully created hole on the right side of the line, then scooted — with some speed! — past a safety’s diving tackle attempt for a 32-yard touchdown that clinched the win over the Black Knights.
After five and a half years, Pearson scored his very first touchdown at the college level, and he did it during his team’s victory — and on national television, no less.
Well done, Kyler Pearson. Well done, ECU.
