COLLEGE FOOTBALL WEEK SIX:

Duke, App State, Western Carolina, UVa, Miami
Among DG’s ACC/NC “Fun Facts & Shout-Outs”

By David Glenn
North Carolina Sports Network
(last updated Oct. 6, 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 Six “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 Six “Fun Fact #1”

Let’s start, as usual, with a Fun Fact — this time with an out-of-state honoree — before we return to the great state of North Carolina for the majority of this week’s shout-outs.

Fun Fact: The last time the Miami Hurricanes were ranked as high as #2 nationally in an October poll was in 2003, which is now 22 years ago, during their last season as a member of the Big East Conference, just before they officially joined the ACC.

That year — 2003 — is also the most recent example of the Canes finishing a season in the national top 10. Larry Coker was their coach, they went 11-2, they won the Big East title, they beat a top-10, Bobby Bowden-coached Florida State squad in the Orange Bowl, and they ended up with a #5 national ranking.

Fast forward: Miami, of course, has never won the ACC football championship, and the Hurricanes have made that title game only once during their two-plus decades in the ACC, back in 2017 under Mark Richt, when they got slaughtered 38-3 by a #1-ranked Clemson squad in Charlotte.

That history serves as a meaningful backdrop for this week’s first shout-out….

#1—Shout-out to fourth-year Miami head coach Mario Cristobal, a former Hurricanes offensive lineman who has led them to a 5-0 start that has included victories over three nationally ranked opponents — Notre Dame, South Florida and (just last week) Florida State — plus a 26-7 win over Florida, which then turned right around and beat nationally ranked Texas.

Cristobal led the Canes to a very good season last year, at 10-3, but that was with award-winning quarterback Cam Ward (the #1 overall NFL draft pick, now starting for the Tennessee Titans) sometimes single-handedly saving the day with pinball-machine-like offensive numbers.

This time, the Canes appear to have a much more well-rounded team, including an extremely talented, hard-hitting defense that’s giving up less than 14 points per game. Miami went to Tallahassee last Saturday and dominated the Seminoles for three quarters, building a 28-3 lead before settling for a 28-22 victory.

The Canes are thriving with a combination of elite-level high school recruiting and wise use of the transfer portal.

Defensive end Rueben Bain Jr., linebacker Wesley Bissainthe, cornerback OJ Frederique Jr., running back Mark Fletcher Jr., wide receiver Malachi Toney, offensive guard Anez Cooper and offensive tackle Francis Mauigoa are all standout players whom Cristobal and his staff signed and developed from the high school ranks. Bain, Bissainthe, Frederique, Fletcher and Toney all hail from the Sunshine State, which ranks as one of the top producers of Power Four-caliber talent every year.

The most impactful portal additions have included quarterback Carson Beck (Georgia), wide receiver CJ Daniels (LSU), defensive end Akheem Mesidor (West Virginia) and safety Jakobe Thomas (Tennessee).

Thanks to that well-executed recruiting combination, the Canes are in great position to make a run at their first ACC football title and their first trip to the College Football Playoff.

#2—Shout-out to Virginia head coach Tony Elliott, who has gone straight from the proverbial hot seat to by far the hottest streak of his four seasons with the Cavaliers, even putting them in position for a potential trip to the ACC championship game, which was an unthinkable proposition just two months ago.

The Wahoos are 5-1 and ranked #19 nationally. It’s important to remember that their 35-31 loss at NC State — which came down to a UVa throw into the end zone that was intercepted — was a non-conference game, so the Wahoos are actually leading the league standings with a 3-0 mark that includes their 46-38 overtime upset of Florida State and (just last week) their 30-27 road win over previously undefeated Louisville.

UVa’s five remaining ACC opponents are UNC, Cal, Wake Forest, Duke and Virginia Tech, and of that group only the Blue Devils have played a high caliber of football this season.

The Cavs have won with a combination of an explosive offense, led by thrilling dual-threat quarterback Chandler Morris (a North Texas transfer), and an opportunistic defense that sometimes gives up a lot of yards but also seems to find a way to come up with big plays in key moments.

Morris may be the most balanced run-pass QB in the ACC, and he’s getting plenty of help from running back J’Mari Taylor (an NC Central transfer), wide receiver Trell Harris (a Kent State transfer) and wide receiver Cam Ross (a James Madison transfer), plus an offensive line that somehow has held together despite a wide variety of injuries, including to projected starters.

#3—Shout-out — again — to second-year Duke head coach Manny Diaz, his offensive coordinator Jonathan Brewer, his defensive coordinator Jonathan Patke, his transfer quarterback Darian Mensah, his true freshman running back Nate Sheppard and his exciting wide receiver and return man, Que’Sean Brown.

Back in August, we at the North Carolina Sports Network predicted that Duke would be the best college football team in the state again this year, and the Blue Devils continue to live up to that description. Their 3-0 ACC record even has them tied for first place in the ACC right now, and they have this week off as they prepare to host #13 Georgia Tech, which is 5-0 but also barely escaped a recent trip to Wake Forest.

In their late-night game at Cal last Saturday, the Devils trailed 21-7 in the second quarter. They had traveled more than 2,000 miles, and they were playing at an unconventional time, so they had all the excuses they could possibly need for a letdown at that point.

Instead, they stuck to their plan and made some big-time in-game adjustments. Mensah again showed tremendous leadership and production, and the Devils scored 38 consecutive points against a Cal team that had been playing pretty good defense this season to grab a convincing 45-21 victory.

Mensah, one of the ACC’s top transfers, ranks third nationally with 306 passing yards per game, and he’s completing 70 percent of his passes, with 15 touchdowns and only two interceptions. Those are lights-out numbers.

Sheppard, one of the ACC’s top freshmen, had 12 carries for 91 yards and two touchdowns against the Bears. Brown, who’s a product of East Forsyth High School in Kernersville, just outside of Winston-Salem, had six catches for 104 yards and a touchdown against Cal.

This Duke story just keeps getting better and better, and it’s a tribute to that staff and those players.

#4—Shout-out to Appalachian State safety Myles Farmer.

A seventh-year senior, Farmer previously started at Nebraska and also played at Syracuse, but he competes with such an extremely physical and sometimes even reckless, violent style that he’s often been sidelined with injuries. He actually arrived at App State in 2024 but played only three games before getting hurt again and missing the rest of the season.

Last Saturday, in the Mountaineers’ 27-23 victory over Oregon State in Boone, Farmer had a defensive player’s Dream Game.

On special teams, while covering a kickoff in the first quarter, he forced a fumble that gave App State the ball at the opponent’s 18-yard line. Four plays later, the Mountaineers scored a touchdown and had a 10-0 lead.

Then, at the end of the game, with Oregon State trailing 27-21 but knocking on the door of an upset victory, Farmer made two more huge plays from his safety position, down by the goal line. On a third-and-goal play, he assisted Ronnie Porter to barely keep the running back out of the end zone, and on fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line, Farmer darted into the backfield and dropped the running back for a two-yard loss.

In what ended up as a 27-23 App State victory, Farmer basically set up seven of his team’s points with a special-teams play and personally prevented seven points by the opponent, which is about as good as it gets for a player who’s participating in those two phases of the game.

In his seventh college season, Farmer just had his most impactful game, and that deserves a special hat tip.

Last, but certainly not least …

#5—Shout-out —at the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) level — to Western Carolina quarterback Taron Dickens, whose name you may have seen in the national headlines over the weekend.

We mentioned this guy here on the North Carolina Sports Network back in August, because we were wondering what would happen when you put together — for a full season — offensive wizard Kerwin Bell, the Catamounts’ head coach, and Dickens, an electrifying talent who started four games last season after an injury to starting QB Cole Gonzales, who’s now in the ACC with the Pitt Panthers.

Well, now we know what would happen, and it’s truly sensational.

Quick backstory: Three years ago, Dickens was Florida’s Class 6A Player of the Year (those are large high schools) and the top-rated prep passer in the entire Sunshine State, but he wasn’t recruited as a quarterback by most schools, mainly because he’s only 5-foot-11 and 180 pounds.

Now a redshirt sophomore for the Catamounts, Dickens missed the first three games of this season, and Western lost all three. Now he’s played in three straight games, and the Catamounts have won all three — while averaging 38 points per game. Western is only 3-3 overall, but the Catamounts are 2-0 in the Southern Conference, with a big game against Furman this Saturday afternoon in Cullowhee.

The feat that put Dickens in the national spotlight, during the Catamounts’ 23-21 win at Wofford, was that he completed his first 46 passes in a row during his team’s comeback victory. He started the day 46-for-46 for 325 yards and three touchdowns, absolutely crushing the NCAA’s previous all-time record (29) for consecutive completions in a single game.

Interestingly, because Dickens also had connected on his last four passes in his previous game, his 50 straight completions over multiple games set another all-time NCAA record. That previous record — 36 straight completions over multiple games — had been held by another guy who played right here in the Bold North State, former ECU quarterback Dominique Davis, who set that record back in 2011.

Congrats, again, to Bell, Dickens and the Catamounts, who are a lot of fun to watch again this season and have at least a chance to make a run at what would be their first-ever Southern Conference football title.