COLLEGE FOOTBALL WEEK FOUR:
NFL/Panthers, Louisville, ECU, Campbell, D2
Among DG’s ACC/NC “Fun Facts & Shout-Outs”
By David Glenn
North Carolina Sports Network
(last updated Sept. 22, 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 Four “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 Four “Fun Fact #1”
Fun Fact: Former Carolina Panthers running back Christian McCaffrey on Sunday became just the third player in National Football League history to score 50 or more touchdowns with two different franchises.
This list of legends now includes only the following three men — Hall of Fame running back Marshall Faulk, Hall of Fame wide receiver Randy Moss, and now McCaffrey. That’s it; that’s the entire 50-50 TD list, in the 106-year history of the NFL.
Faulk accomplished the feat over his five seasons with the Indianapolis Colts (1994-98) and seven with the old Saint Louis Rams (1999-2005). Moss tuned the trick as an eight-year member of the Minnesota Vikings (1998-2004, 2010) and as just a three-plus-year player for the New England Patriots (2007-10).
As an active player, of course, McCaffrey is not yet eligible for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but some of his accomplishments are just as extraordinary.
A consensus All-American at Stanford, McCaffrey became Carolina’s first-round draft pick in 2017, then spent almost five and a half seasons wearing the Panthers’ uniform here in the Bold North State. By the time he was traded to San Francisco, during the 2022 NFL season, McCaffrey had scored exactly 50 regular-season touchdowns for Carolina, 32 on rushing attempts and 18 on pass receptions.
Now in his fourth full season with San Francisco, McCaffrey is a four-time Pro Bowler and a four-time All-Pro honoree.
During his time with the 49ers, McCaffrey led the NFL in rushing yards and was named the NFL’s Offensive Player of the Year in 2023, and after an injury-riddled 2024 campaign, he was the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year in 2025.
With his two touchdowns on Sunday, McCaffrey now has exactly 50 regular-season touchdowns with the 49ers, too, once again with 32 coming on rushing attempts and 18 on pass receptions.
Now on to this week’s shout-outs, brought to you by our friends at Muscle Milk, as we head into Week Four …
#1—Shout-out to fourth-year Louisville head coach Jeff Brohm.
Despite breaking in a first-time college starter at quarterback, two key incoming transfers at wide receiver, and four new starters on the offensive line, Brohm — a former Cardinals QB who has averaged better than nine wins per season as their head coach — seemingly has crafted yet another highly productive offense that, for now at least, ranks alongside Miami’s megatalented crew as one of the very best in the ACC.
During its impressive 2-1 start, where the only loss was a 41-38 nail-biter against top-10 Ole Miss, Louisville averaged 46 points and 515 yards per game, with both numbers ranking among the best in the conference. Last week, the Cardinals’ offense led the way in their 41-31 home triumph over #16 SMU, which lifted the Cards to #16 in the national rankings heading into this week’s game against Wake Forest.
The ACC’s three most efficient quarterbacks so far this season have been Miami’s Darien Mensah (who was an All-ACC performer at Duke last season), SMU’s Kevin Jennings (a fifth-year senior and third-year starter for the Mustangs) and — drumroll, please — Louisville’s Lincoln Kienholz, an Ohio State transfer who never started a game during his three years with the Buckeyes.
Kienholz has been able to hit the ground running under Brohm, despite his extreme lack of experience at the college level. Against Ole Miss, Villanova and SMU, Kienholz completed 48 of his 73 passing attempts for 816 yards, six touchdowns and no interceptions. A sturdy 6-foot-2, 215-pounder, he also ranks among the ACC’s top 20 players in rushing offense, with 32 carries for 153 yards and four more TDs.
Kienholz’s top two receiving targets, Vanderbilt transfer Tre Richardson (15 catches, 242 yards, one touchdown) and Florida State transfer Lawayne McCoy (nine catches, 226 yards, three TDs), were 2026 additions from the portal who had been starters at their previous schools. Heading into Week Four, each ranked among the ACC’s top seven in receiving yards per game.
In the trenches, meanwhile, Louisville typically starts five transfers in front of Kienholz and returning running back stars Isaac Brown and Keyjuan Brown.
Left tackle Lance Robinson, a 2023 Houston transfer, is a seventh-year senior with 40 career starts. The other four o-line starters just arrived this year: left guard Eryx Daugherty (a former Boston College starter), center Evan Wibberley (a Kentucky transfer who had started in 2024 at Western Kentucky), right guard Johnnie Brown III (an All-Sun Belt performer at Georgia Southern) and right tackle Cason Henry (18 career starts at South Carolina).
Considering all of those new faces, many of them in brand-new roles, Brohm deserves a lot of credit for putting the pieces together so well — and so quickly — that the Cardinals are considered, along with Miami, among the top contenders for this year’s ACC championship game.
#2—Shout-out to East Carolina head coach Blake Harrell, new defensive coordinator Jordon Hankins and veteran safety Ayden Duncanson for combining to save the Pirates’ season last week, during a come-from-behind road victory against ODU.
With the ECU offense struggling mightily for the third consecutive week, and with the Pirates trailing the Monarchs 17-10 early in the third quarter and at severe risk of falling to 0-3 on the season, Duncanson dialed into an awkward, across-his-body pass toward midfield from the ODU quarterback, stepped in front of a receiver to snag the interception, then sprinted down the left sideline and followed his defensive teammates’ blocks all the way to the end zone for a game-tying, 67-yard pick-six.
That single play proved to be the biggest of the game … one that could turn out to be among the biggest plays of the Pirates’ season if they can get their offense going at some point, too.
Harrell, of course, is ECU’s former defensive coordinator; his fingerprints remain all over the group’s schemes and game plans. Hankins arrived as the program’s new DC in January from Memphis, where he had helped the Tigers to 19 wins over the past two seasons.
Duncanson, who earned the American Conference’s Defensive Player of the Week honor for his heroics on Saturday, is in his third year at ECU, after beginning his college career at UNC, and had played mostly in backup roles before his huge game in Norfolk.
In the end, during their 20-17 victory over ODU, the Pirates limited the Monarchs to just 14 first downs, 94 passing yards and only 274 total yards. They also forced two ODU turnovers, one of which Duncanson turned into the biggest play of the Pirates’ season so far.
#3—Shout-out, at the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) level, to third-year Campbell head coach Braxton Harris.
Harris has his team off to a 3-1 start — the only loss was to the undefeated Florida Gators in Gainesville — and the Camels just received the first Top 25 national ranking in their relatively brief history on the gridiron.
Campbell, which didn’t launch its program until 2008, already has posted two impressive victories this season —49-37 at East Tennessee State and 28-19 at home against a Western Carolina squad that was ranked in the FCS Top 25 at the time — and the Camels are favored in their game this Saturday at Hampton, a fellow member of the Coastal Athletic Association.
Harris, the son of a Texas high school football coach, was a Division Three quarterback during his playing days, and his Campbell offense is off to a prolific start this season, ranking second in the CAA at more than 30 points per game.
The Camels’ quarterback, 6-foot-3, 210-pound senior Kamden Sixkiller, is in his second year as the team’s starter and leading the league with 285 passing yards per game, a 69 percent completion rate and eight touchdown throws.
If Campbell can claim a victory at Hampton on Saturday, the Camels will be off to an impressive 4-1 start. That would be a very compelling story, in part, because the best record in the history of the program is just 6-5.
Coach Dale Steele managed that 6-5 mark one time, in 2011, and coach Mike Minter — the long-time player with the NFL’s Carolina Panthers — posted that record three consecutive times, in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Regardless of what happens the rest of the way this season, Harris appears to have his program on a distinctly upward arc in Buies Creek, after records of 3-9 in 2024 and just 2-10 a year ago.
Last, but certainly not least…
#4—Shout-out, at the Division Two level, to second-year Mars Hill head coach Kevin Barnette.
Barnette has the Lions off to a 3-0 start. playing elite defense, and competing in a very big game on Saturday at 4-0 Carson-Newman, which is ranked in the top 25 of every D2 poll.
Last September, Barnette — after almost four decades as an assistant coach at Mars Hill — posted his first victory as a head coach, and it came over a nationally ranked Carson-Newman squad, so perhaps the Lions can work some of that same magic on the road this season.
Barnette, who’s already in the Mars Hill Athletics Hall of Fame because of his success as an All-American defensive back in the 1980s, had been the school’s defensive coordinator for 31 seasons prior to last summer, when he got promoted to head coach after the retirement of Tim Clifton, who had been the Lions’ leader for 32 years.
Now Barnette’s 2026 Lions, through their 3-0 start, are playing his trademark defense and giving up only about seven points per game.
Barnette actually grew up in Mars Hill, a tiny town — population about 2,000 — in the mountains, just north of Asheville, so his entire success story seems to qualify nicely as both the proverbial Life-Long Dream Come True and The Local Guy Done Good.
Congratulations, Coach Barnette, on a job very well-done.
