COLLEGE FOOTBALL WEEK THREE:
Doeren, Swinney, UNC, Duke, Wake, NCCU
Among DG’s ACC/NC “Fun Facts & Shout-Outs”
By David Glenn
North Carolina Sports Network
(last updated Sept. 15, 2026)
While the focus of our weekly college football shows are forward-looking as often as possible, we always take a glance back at the previous week, 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 Three “Fun Facts and Shout-Outs,” brought to you by our good friends at Jimmy’s bar and King Neptune restaurant in Wrightsville Beach and the same folks’ latest creation, Jimmy’s Inland, their new bar in Wilmington.
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 in Wrightsville Beach, King Neptune has become one of the best restaurants in the greater Wilmington area. Jimmy’s Inland, which features live music, pool tables, darts, an arcade and the brand’s signature slushies, is located about a mile from the UNC Wilmington campus.
Week Two “Fun Fact #1”
These details will surprise a lot of college football fans — that’s part of what makes it a “Fun Fact” — but among the winningest football coaches in the entire history of the 73-year-old Atlantic Coast Conference, two of them are working in the league right now.
(The first one should be easy. Does the other come to mind quickly?)
Only five men have posted 100 or more victories while leading an ACC program, and that short list reads like a “Who’s Who Of College Football” — Clemson’s Dabo Swinney (188), Florida State’s Bobby Bowden (173), Virginia’s George Welsh (134), Virginia Tech’s Frank Beamer (113) and UNC’s Mack Brown (113).
Swinney and Bowden are undoubtedly the two most successful football coaches in ACC history. In fact, they’re the only two with multiple national championships to their credit.
Bowden led FSU to national titles in 1993 and 1999, soon after the Seminoles joined the conference, and he ultimately claimed a record 12 ACC championships, too. Swinney, of course, led Clemson to national titles in 2016 and 2018, and the Tigers claimed nine ACC titles over his first 18 seasons.
Welsh, Beamer and Brown did very special things, too.
Welsh led the Wahoos to two ACC championships and six top-25 finishes during his 19 seasons in Charlottesville. Beamer led the Hokies to four ACC titles and six top-10 finishes, including a trip to the 1999 national championship game, over his 29 seasons in Blacksburg. Brown’s national championship didn’t come until after he left UNC for Texas, but he did lead the Tar Heels to arguably the best back-to-back campaigns in Carolina history in 1996 and 1997, when the Heels’ 10-2 and 11-1 records gave them consecutive top-10 finishes in the national polls.
Now this Fun Fact, remember, mentioned that two of the winningest coaches in the league’s 73-year history are still active in the conference. Swinney is one, of course, but Bowden and Welsh are deceased, and Beamer and Brown are both retired.
That brings us to Dave Doeren, the 14th-year head coach at NC State.
As his team visits Vanderbilt this week, Doeren needs only four more victories to join the ACC’s exclusive 100-win club. His career record with the Wolfpack is 96-71, and while he’s never led the Pack to an ACC title or even the conference championship game, he has posted four nine-win seasons, four eight-win campaigns, 11 bowl invitations and three top-25 finishes during his 14 years and counting in Raleigh.
To be remembered as a true legend, of course, Doeren will have to do something extra-special at some point. In the meantime, though, he’s oh-so-close to adding his name to a star-studded list that — for now — includes only Swinney, Bowden, Welsh, Beamer and Brown.
Now on to this week’s shout-outs, brought to you by our friends at Muscle Milk, as we head into Week Three …
#1—Shout-out to Duke running back Nate Sheppard.
Everyone agrees that football is a team game — some say the ultimate team game — but sometimes a single, special player means the difference between winning and losing. That difference-making player is most often a quarterback, but in this case, he’s a running back.
Sheppard is a 5-foot-10, 205-pound sophomore. If you watched every play of Duke’s 17-3 home victory over Tulane and the Blue Devils’ 31-27 road win at Illinois, as I did, you likely agree that Sheppard’s rare skill set and prolific production ultimately were the difference between Duke starting this season 2-0 instead of 0-2.
Heading into Week Three of the college football season, Sheppard leads the entire FBS ranks with 187 rushing yards per game. Only two other players were within 50 yards of that average, and both of them were way back, at 148 yards per game.
In the Blue Devils’ season-opening victory over Tulane, on an afternoon when the Duke passing attack was erratic and the Duke defense was breaking in an entirely new line, Sheppard saved the day with 35 carries for 227 yards and the only two touchdowns of the game. As a result of Sheppard’s heroics, Duke’s mostly new defense was on the field for only 23 minutes against the Green Wave.
Sheppard followed up that performance — still the best for any FBS back in any game this season — with 24 carries for 147 yards and a touchdown in Duke’s narrow victory at Illinois. In that one, Sheppard also showcased his skills as a receiver, with a team-high five catches for 41 yards and two more touchdowns.
The Sheppard story has many interesting layers. As discussed on his recent visit to the David Glenn Show, his parents were both athletes at Louisiana Tech. His brother Will, who was a star wide receiver at Vanderbilt and Colorado during his college career, has spent time with the Green Bay Packers and the Miami Dolphins in the NFL over the past two seasons.
At this point, the NFL looks like a reachable goal for Nate Sheppard, too. A Freshman All-American and second-team All-ACC honoree last year, when he rushed 200 times for 1,132 yards and 11 touchdowns for the ACC champion Blue Devils, Sheppard now looks like one of the best running backs in the entire country and one of the best players — at any position — in the entire ACC.
#2—Shout-out to North Carolina tight end Jelani Thurman.
During his three seasons at Ohio State, Thurman played only as a backup for the Buckeyes.
Now in his first year at UNC, Thurman not only has emerged as the Tar Heels’ starting tight end, he’s making headlines for both his blocking skills and his pass-catching ability, and he might be one of the team’s top players.
Through Week Two of the college football season, Thurman ranked second nationally among FBS tight ends with 165 receiving yards, and his blocking — as an imposing 6-foot-6, 245-pounder — also has been drawing praise from UNC head coach Bill Belichick and Carolina’s new offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino.
Belichick, of course, helped turn legendary New England Patriots star Rob Gronkowski into one of the most productive tight ends in NFL history. Petrino, formerly a head coach at Arkansas, Louisville and with the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, also has frequently showcased the tight end position, including with former Arkansas star DJ Williams, who won the John Mackey Award as college football’s top tight end in 2010 before moving on to a professional career.
Thurman, who was a prep All-American at Langston Hughes High School in the talent-rich Atlanta area in Georgia four years ago, already has more receiving yards in his first two games with the Tar Heels (165) than he had in three full seasons at Ohio State (144), even though he played in 35 career games for the Buckeyes, including all 16 during their national championship campaign in 2024.
Thurman’s father, Odell Thurman, was an All-SEC linebacker for the Georgia Bulldogs in 2003 and 2004 before moving on to an NFL career. Thurman’s mother, Kara Braxton, was an All-SEC basketball player for the Bulldogs who went on to become an all-star and two-time champion in the WNBA.
Jelani Thurman was born just as his father was preparing to make his jump to the NFL and just as his mother was readying for her jump to the WNBA.
Now Jelani, a fourth-year college player with one season of college eligibility remaining after this one, appears to be making a very significant jump of his own.
#3—Shout-outs to Wake Forest defensive coordinator Scottie Hazelton and first-year Demon Deacons linebacker Vinny Firenze.
It is not easy to make a smooth transition from the FCS level to the FBS level of college football. It seems especially difficult to make an even larger jump, let’s say from a non-scholarship FCS league to a Power Four conference, or to do so while making a position change along the way.
Firenze (pronounced “fuh-REN-zee”), a brand-new linebacker at Wake Forest, has done all of these things and then some.
After he made a team-high nine tackles in the Demon Deacons’ 38-16 victory over Akron in Week One, Firenze was named the ACC’s linebacker of the week. He then followed up that performance with a team-high 11 tackles in the Deacons’ 38-36 double-overtime triumph at Purdue.
A 6-foot-4, 230-pounder originally from Syracuse, N.Y., Firenze actually played safety for the past three seasons at the University of Dayton, which plays in the Pioneer Football League. The Pioneer League and the Ivy League are the only FCS conferences that don’t offer athletic scholarships.
Hazelton, who played an enormous role — as Wake’s brilliant defensive coordinator — in head coach Jake Dickert’s 9-4 debut with the Deacons last year, watched video of Firenze as a super-sized, all-conference safety at Dayton and envisioned him as an immediate contributor in Wake’s 4-2-5 system, which utilizes only two linebackers.
Now this year’s Demon Deacons appear to have another very strong defense, led by 2025 returnees Langston Hardy and Gabe Kirschke at end, returning all-conference performer Davaughn Patterson at safety and — yes, right in the middle of the action — the newcomer Firenze at linebacker.
Last, but certainly not least…
#4—Shout-out to North Carolina Central coach Trei Oliver.
Now in his eighth year leading his alma mater, Oliver already has done pretty much everything NC Central could have possibly asked of him upon his hiring in December 2018, when the Eagles were still less than a decade into full-scale membership as an FCS program, after making the large leap from Division Two.
Oliver’s crowning achievement in Durham so far came in 2022, when he led NC Central to the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) championship and the HBCU national title. That latter label came via a thrilling 41-34 overtime victory over Jackson State in the Celebration Bowl, held at the sparkling Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
But wait, there’s more — much more.
Oliver also has posted five consecutive winning seasons, and he has taken the Eagles on their first-ever trip to the FCS playoffs. That came in 2023, when NCCU finished 9-3 and captured a second straight MEAC title.
On top of all that, every college football fan in the Bold North State knows that it’s part of the NC Central coach’s job to give the Eagles the upper hand in their century-long rivalry with North Carolina A&T, the other largest and most famous HBCU in North Carolina.
Back when Oliver was an all-conference player at Central, it was still a Division Two program, and the Eagles were in a the midst of a 12-game losing streak to the Aggies, who were already an FCS program at that time.
Now that both universities are in the FCS ranks, it’s become a more level playing field, and Oliver’s Eagles clearly have had the upper hand lately. The Bold North State Tailgate Tour was there last Saturday, at O’Kelly-Riddick Stadium in Durham, as Oliver, his guys and their fans celebrated their fifth straight victory over A&T, this time by a 30-22 margin.
Congratulations, Coach Oliver, on a job very well-done.
