NC/ACC Week 10 College Football Previews:

Duke, Wake, State, UNC, ECU Among
In-State Teams Facing Key Matchups
(DG’s “This Week In CFB” YouTube Show = Below)

By David Glenn
North Carolina Sports Network
(last updated Oct. 28, 2025)

The 2025 college football season continues via a compelling Week 10 schedule, with NC State hosting 8-0 Georgia Tech, while Duke, East Carolina, UNC and Wake Forest seek important victories on the road, and Fayetteville State and Johnson C Smith collide in a CIAA showdown.

Meanwhile, the most prominent Week 10 games nationally on Saturday include two intra-league clashes in the Atlantic Coast Conference and one in the Southeastern Conference: #10 Miami at SMU (noon, ESPN), #9 Vanderbilt at #20 Texas (noon, ABC) and #8 Georgia Tech at NC State (7:30 p.m., ESPN2).

From the wide-ranging schedule (see below) in the Old North State, here are more details from this week’s “Three To See” selections:

In-State “Three To See,” Game One

Duke (4-3) at Clemson (3-4), Sat., noon (ACCN)

As everyone who’s followed college football lately would guess, Duke doesn’t beat Clemson in football very often, and a win at Death Valley is a truly rare occurrence for the Blue Devils.

Duke did defeat the Tigers during the Mike Elko era, in 2023, but that game was in Durham, and this one is at Clemson. Overall, the Devils have lost five of their last six and 10 of their last 12 to the men in orange, and the last time they won in Death Valley was 45 years ago, meaning in 1980.

Believe it or not, that year, a really bad Red Wilson-coached Duke team beat a mediocre Danny Ford-coached Clemson team, 34-17, just one year before Ford led the Tigers to a 12-0 record and the school’s first national championship, in 1981. Add that one to the “Strange But True” files.

Anyway, this Duke-Clemson matchup is a lot more even — and a lot more difficult to predict — than almost all of the other contests between these programs over the past 40 years, and that’s in large part because of the fascinating quarterback matchup in this one.

The Blue Devils have, without a doubt, one of the best pure passers in all of college football with Tulane transfer Darian Mensah. Meanwhile, Clemson has the preseason ACC Player of the Year in senior quarterback Cade Klubnik, but that now comes with a couple of asterisks.

One, even when healthy, Klubnik has not been even an above-average QB this season; his rushing numbers are way down from last year, and his throwing numbers — especially TD passes — are way down, too. Second, Klubnik has been dealing with a severe ankle injury that caused him to miss the Tigers’ most recent game, a 35-24 home loss to SMU on Oct. 18.

Clemson backup QB Christopher Vizzina went the whole way for Clemson against the Mustangs, and he actually completed 29 of 42 passes for 317 yards and three touchdowns (with no interceptions) in a losing cause, although he also fumbled twice and got sacked four times.

Clemson coach Dabo Swinney certainly hopes Klubnik will be back, and much closer to 100 percent physically, coming off the team’s open week.

Clemson may present the best defense Duke has faced this season. With Mensah at the controls, Duke is third in the ACC in total offense, at 463 yards per game, but Clemson is fourth in the ACC in scoring defense, at about 21 points per game, and the Tigers have plenty of NFL-caliber talent on that side of the ball.

The Blue Devils have scored at least 38 points in each of their wins this season, and that’s highly unlikely to happen this time, so this game probably will come down to whether Duke’s defense (which has been just OK  for head coach Manny Diaz this season) or Clemson’s offense (which has had all sorts of injury and execution problems) rises to the occasion.

Whoever plays QB for the Tigers will miss star wide receiver Bryant Wesco Jr., the team’s leading receiver, who is out for the season because of the serious back injury he suffered in the SMU loss.

It may sound strange to hear, but this feels like a true coin-flip game, meaning the Blue Devils (a three-point underdog) have a legitimate chance to do something their program hasn’t accomplished at Death Valley in nearly a half-century.

In-State “Three To See,” Game Two

Wake Forest (5-2) at Florida State (3-4), Sat., 7:30 p.m. (ACCN)

For decades, the Wake Forest-Florida State football rivalry was a lot like Duke-Clemson, meaning heavily lopsided in favor of the out-of-state program.

In fact, after the Seminoles joined the ACC prior to the 1992 season, they played the Demon Deacons 14 years in a row — and beat them 14 years in a row, almost always by large margins.

Things did change quite a bit during the Jim Grobe and Dave Clawson eras at Wake Forest, however, and the Deacons now have gone a much more respectable 7-10 over their past 17 games against the Seminoles.

Perhaps the most striking contrast in this year’s game involves the conversations around the teams’ head coaches.

First-year Wake coach Jake Dickert is being universally celebrated for maximizing a mostly mediocre roster during the Demon Deacons’ 5-2 start, during which they’ve been plenty competitive in all seven games, including a controversial 30-29 overtime loss to #8 Georgia Tech.

On the other hand, fans and media have been discussing the enormous buyout number — more than $55 million, if he’s fired later this year — of sixth-year FSU coach Mike Norvell after the Seminoles’ 3-4 start, which somehow includes both a 31-17 win over nationally ranked Alabama (in their season opener) and a 20-13 loss at lowly Stanford (in their most recent game). When FSU athletic director Mike Alford chimed in with public comments recently, saying he’d evaluate Norvell at the end of the season, it wasn’t exactly a vote of confidence.

One of the quirky aspects of this matchup is that both starting quarterbacks, dual threats Robby Ashford of Wake Forest and Tommy Castellanos of FSU, are coming off significant injuries. Ashford has missed most of the past two games with a thumb injury, and Castellanos was knocked out of the Stanford game two weeks ago with an apparent concussion.

Regardless of who starts at QB, both teams will try to run it, Wake (a nine-point underdog) with senior Demond Claiborne (a highly regarded NFL prospect) and FSU with Oklahoma transfer Gavin Sawchuk and true freshman Ousmane Kromah.

Neither team has been dominant in the trenches this season, so odds are both defensive coordinators will stack the box and force the opposing quarterback to try to make throws downfield. Whoever does that better is probably going to win this game.

In-State “Three To See,” Game Three

UNC (2-5) at Syracuse (3-5), Fri., 7:30 p.m. (ESPN)

During the offseason, you could imagine the logic of turning this into a Friday night made-for-TV matchup.

UNC had hired six-time Super Bowl champion Bill Belichick, and Syracuse was coming off a 10-win season in coach Fran Brown’s debut with the Orange last year.

Fast forward through the first half of the 2025 season, though, and what ESPN actually has is a pairing of two of the most anemic offenses and bottom-tier teams in the entire ACC.

On the plus side, both UNC and Syracuse have shown the ability to execute a well-conceived defensive game plan. The Orange did that earlier this season in victories over UConn and Clemson. The Tar Heels did the same over these past two weeks, against Cal and Virginia, albeit in a low-scoring defeat each time.

Since the season-ending injury to Notre Dame transfer Steve Angeli, who was throwing the ball like Kyle McCord before his injury at Clemson, the Orange have gone 0-4 with LSU transfer Rickie Collins and occasionally true freshman Luke Carney at the controls.

At Carolina, the QB culprits have been South Alabama transfer Gio Lopez and sixth-year senior Max Johnson, with only rare sparks in the passing game, despite a high-caliber target in sophomore Jordan Shipp.

Who knows? Viewers may see all four QBs, plus some wildcat formations, in this one. UNC (a two-point underdog) will try to run the ball, perhaps with four different tailbacks, against a Syracuse defense that is giving up an ACC-worst 4.8 yards per rushing attempt.

Otherwise, the most predicable part of this game may be that the winner is going to be whichever team can handle the national TV spotlight and the desperate state of their season with better maturity, discipline and execution and fewer missed assignments and mental mistakes.

In-State “Three To See,” Bonus Games

With Appalachian State (4-4) and Charlotte (1-7) both off this week, the only other FBS game involving an in-state team is East Carolina (4-3) visiting 5-3 Temple on Saturday (2 p.m., ESPN+). This is an important game because the winner will continue to be relevant in the American Conference race — alongside Navy, Tulane, Memphis, South Florida and North Texas — whereas the loser will fall out of contention completely. The Pirates are a five-point favorite in this matchup against an Owls team that is very vulnerable defensively but whose only losses so far this season have been to very high-quality opponents: Oklahoma, Georgia Tech and 7-0 Navy. … At the FCS level, Gardner-Webb (5-3) gets a shot at 8-0 Tennessee Tech (1 p.m., ESPN+), which is #8 in the national rankings, while Western Carolina (5-3) travels to 4-4 Chattanooga (4 p.m., ESPN+) with the hope of both showcasing its prolific offense under highlight-reel quarterback Taron Dickens and extending its still-perfect record in Southern Conference play. … Finally, in the Division Two ranks, #19 Johnson C Smith — the only nationally ranked team, at any NCAA level, in our entire state right now — visits Fayetteville State in a huge CIAA showdown (1 p.m., HBCU Go). The winner of this one will be in great position to face nationally ranked Virginia Union in the CIAA championship game, which this year will be held at Durham County Stadium on Nov. 15.

NC Football Bowl Subdivision (Seven Teams)
(Games Saturday Unless Otherwise Indicated)

North Carolina (2-5) at Syracuse (3-5), 7:30 p.m. (ESPN) — Friday
Duke (4-3) at Clemson (3-4), noon (ACCN)
East Carolina (4-3) at Temple (5-3), 2 p.m. (ESPN+)
#8 Georgia Tech (8-0) at NC State (4-4), 7:30 p.m. (ESPN2)
Wake Forest (5-2) at Florida State (3-4), 7:30 p.m. (ACCN)

Open Week: Appalachian State (4-4), Charlotte (1-7)

Atlantic Coast Conference (17 Teams)

North Carolina (2-5) at Syracuse (3-5), 7:30 p.m. (ESPN) — Friday
Duke (4-3) at Clemson (3-4), noon (ACCN)
#10 Miami (6-1) at SMU (5-3), noon (ESPN)
#16 Louisville (6-1) at Virginia Tech (3-5), 3 p.m. (The CW)
#12 Notre Dame (5-2) at Boston College (1-7), 3:30 p.m. (ESPN)
Pittsburgh (6-2) at Stanford (3-5), 3:30 p.m. (ACCN)
#15 Virginia (7-1) at California (5-3), 3:45 p.m. (ESPN2)
#8 Georgia Tech (8-0) at NC State (4-4), 7:30 p.m. (ESPN2)
Wake Forest (5-2) at Florida State (3-4), 7:30 p.m. (ACCN)