Clemson's surprising collapse and Duke's championship run define a tumultuous ACC season, questioning long-held power dynamics and leaving fans stunned.
With the 2025-2026 college football season coming to an end, it's time to look at the Power 4 conferences in a year end review. This was another interesting year in college football; some conferences stayed the same with little variance and other conferences are wide open. We've seen teams rapidly ascend like Texas Tech and Indiana while other conferences had their flag ship teams drop to the middle of the road. Coaching changes and the transfer portal played a big role in some team's success or demise. Let's continue our look at some big picture takeaways from each Power 4 conference. Next up, the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The Fall Of Clemson
Arguably a bigger head scratcher than the team from Happy Valley, the downfall of Clemson in 2025 was truly shocking. Based on who they brought back on both sides of the ball and having head coach Dabo Swinney back at the helm, I thought this program was a sure-fire lock for the College Football Playoffs. They dropped their season opener against LSU in a close 17-10 defensive brawl but the cause for panic came in the following weeks. The Tigers only beat Troy 27-16 in a game where they trailed going into halftime 16-3. After their narrowly escaped loss from Troy, Clemson dropped two straight. They lost to Georgia Tech on the road 24-21 and then lost to Syracuse at home 34-21 in a game that wasn't as close as the final score indicated.
The biggest concern was the moving of the goal post by Swinney during this season's collapse. Clemson was a program that was supposed to compete for national titles year in and year out based on what they did from 2015-2020, but recently that narrative has changed. Swinney changed his tune from national title aspirations to conference title aspirations for a team that returned a veteran quarterback, a talent receiving corps, a talented front seven and a proven defensive coordinator. Clemson's performance in 2025 isn't a death sentence by any means, but the days of them being an annual title contender are behind them barring a major turnaround.
Definition Of A Down Year
There's always a lot of talk between the Big Ten vs the SEC and who had the down year, who's conference is better and who's conference is deeper. If you're looking for the definition of a 'down year' the ACC might be added to Webster's definition. For starters, a five-loss Duke team played for the conference championship and won. Their lone team in the playoff didn't even have the opportunity to play for the ACC title due to the wacky tie-breaker rules that were in place. Two of their three 'flagship teams' in Clemson and Florida State combined to go 12-13 with Clemson losing their bowl game to Penn State and Florida State not playing in one entirely for the second straight season.
The biggest surprise of the year was a Virginia team, who nobody saw coming, going 11-3 but still losing the conference championship to five-loss Duke. All while that's happening, commissioner Jim Phillips led a month long smear campaign against their biggest business partners in Notre Dame. On top of that, only three ACC teams made the final college football playoff rankings with Miami carrying the bulk of the load ranked 10th. Virginia finished 19th while Georgia Tech finished 22nd. The Yellow Jackets are likely to drop out after their loss to BYU in the Pop-Tarts Bowl in the final Associated Press rankings that come out when the playoffs end.
Who Will Emerge As The Flagship?
With the uncertainty surrounding the ACC, it's valid to question who their flagship team, or teams, will be. The Big Ten and the SEC and sound in who there's will be and the Big 12 is a different beast in itself. But what happens with the ACC in 2026? Will Clemson return to it's former glory and become a playoff contender? Will Miami be able to sustain this level of success? Will SMU bounce back and become a playoff contender in 2026? Is head coach Tony Elliot and Virginia here to stay? All of these questions are valid and will be interesting to see what happens with the Atlantic Coast Conference moving forward. As overlooked as they are, I'd say the Big 12 has surpassed the ACC in overall quality.
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