Atlantic Coast Conference Football Programs / Useful Notes - TV Tropes (2024)

Boston College Eagles

For Boston!

Location: Chestnut Hill, MA
School Established: 1863
Conference Affiliations: Ind. (1892-1990)^note, Big East (1991-2004), ACC (2005-)
Overall Win Record: 698-523-37 (.570)
Bowl Record: 15-13 (.536)
Colors: Maroon and gold
Stadium: Alumni Stadium (44,500 capacity)
Current Head Coach: Bill O'Brien
Notable Historic Coaches: Frank Cavanaugh, Gil Dobie, Frank Leahy, Mike Holovak, Tom Coughlin
Notable Historic Players: Mike Holovak, Art Donovan, Ernie Stautner, Jack Concannon, Joe Nash, Doug Flutie, Tom Nalen, Matt Hasselbeck, William Green, Matt Ryan, Steve Aponavicius, B.J. Raji, Mark Herzlich, Luke Kuechly, Andre Williams
National Championships: 0 (1 claimed, 1940)
Conference Championships: 1 (Big East - 2004, four-way tie)^note

Boston College^note is more widely known for its academics and its five-time champion hockey team than its football program. However, the team still has a proud century-plus history, with the peaks after their earliest years being their "Team of Destiny" undefeated 1940 campaign that launched coach Frank Leahy to his position at Notre Dame (the school still hangs a national championship banner for this season that no one else recognizes) and QB Doug Flutie's 1984 Heisman win (sealed with a game-winning Hail Mary pass against Miami in a nationally televised game). After spending most of their history as an independent, they joined the Big East in 1991 and jumped ship to the ACC in 2005 right after winning a Big East title. QB Matt Ryan kept them competitive for their first few years in the new conference, but they soon slid down to middling records. Ryan's departure in 2008 ended a unique streak; despite not being a regular season powerhouse, BC won eight straight bowl games from 2000-07, tied for the third-longest such run ever.

Eagles players have an Academic Athlete reputation due to the rigors of their school. Due to being the only two Catholic FBS schools, BC has a good rivalry with Notre Dame (their matchups being referred to as a "Holy War"), and they have pretty long-standing rivalries with Syracuse and inter-state competitor UMass. However, the school they've played the most in their history is FCS Holy Cross. Alumni Stadium has been their home since 1957, with its most recent major renovation being in 1995. One unusual feature of the stadium is that it's physically attached to BC's basketball and hockey arena, Conte Forum (aka Kelley Rink). Several luxury boxes in the complex have views of both the football field and arena floor.

California Golden Bears

The Band is Out on the Field!

Location: Berkeley, CA
School Established: 1868
Conference Affiliations: Ind. (1886–1905, 1915),^note Pac-12 (1916–2023), ACC (2024–)
Overall Win Record: 694–571–51 (.547)
Bowl Record: 12–12–1 (.500)
Colors: Blue and gold
Stadium: California Memorial Stadium (capacity 51,892)
Current Head Coach: Justin Wilcox
Notable Historic Coaches: Andy Smith, Stub Allison, Buck Shaw, Pappy Waldorf, Marv Levy, Joe Kapp, Steve Mariucci, Jeff Tedford
Notable Historic Players: Walter A. Gordon, Roy Riegels, John Ralston, Les Richter, Joe Kapp, Craig Morton, Isaac Curtis^*, Herm Edwards^*, Vince Ferragamo^*, Steve Bartkowski, Joe Roth, Chuck Muncie, Wesley Walker, Robert Rozier, Jim Breech, Rich Campbell, Ron Rivera, Hardy Nickerson, David Binn, Tony Gonzalez, Kyle Boller, Nnamdi Asomugha, Aaron Rodgers, Marshawn Lynch, L.P. Ladouceur, DeSean Jackson, Jahvid Best, Cam Jordan, Keenan Allen, Jared Goff
National Championships: 5 (1920–23, 1937)
Conference Championships: 14 (1918, 1920–23, 1935, 1937-38, 1948–50, 1958, 1975, 2006)

The University of California, Berkeley has been known for decades as the left-wing public school Strawman U and is acclaimed more for its very strong academic output than its athletics. That is an indication of just how influential California's first land-grant university has been in politics, business, and the sciences for well over a century, because its athletics program is still a juggernaut; Berkeley claims over 40 NCAA national titles in various sports, and its men's water polo team leads D-I with 17 national titles as of 2023.^note However, its football team hasn't been a true power for decades, likely due to the school's stringent academic standards. The team used to be very strong in the early 20th century and was actually the first on the West Coast to attain national success in the sport. Coach Andy Smith's "Wonder Teams" posted five straight seasons (1920-24) with no losses and four ties, earning four national titles before his untimely death in 1926. Cal stayed fairly competitive for several more years, earning one more national title with their 1937 "Thunder Team", but they declined when the school altered its admissions priorities after a few recruiting violations during the tenure of coach Pappy Waldorf (1947-56). The Golden Bears have had a few scattered moments of football success since then, with their most memorable victory coming with "The Play" against hated Bay Area rival Stanford (see their entry below). However, their only consistent run of success since the 1950s came under Jeff Tedford in the 2000s, and they have since regressed to mediocrity.

"Cal" gets to go by the name of its state rather than its city due to being the first UC campus, which only fragmented into semi-autonomous schools in the mid-20th century. Before the 2024 collapse of the Pac-12, it was one of the only two founding Pac-12 members (alongside Washington) that had uninterrupted membership in the Pac and its predecessors. Their picturesque Memorial Stadium was built at the tail end of their dominant run in the early 1920s. The site's topography grants some attendees an excellent view of San Francisco Bay, though the best spot to take in that view is on "Tightwad Hill", a site right above the western stands where fans can get a free (albeit distant) view of the games. Unfortunately, the stadium is built right on top of a fault line, requiring a large-scale renovation after it literally began to break in half in the 2000s. After the Big Ten and Big 12 raided the Pac-12, Cal seemed all but certain to lose power conference status; to make matters even worse for the Bears, no athletic department in the country was carrying more debt at the time—a reported $450 million. However, Cal and Stanford eventually got a lifeline in the form of an ACC invitation, though both schools made major financial concessions to receive it.

Clemson Tigers

T-I-G-E-rrRRRR-S!

Location: Clemson, SC
School Established: 1889
Conference Affiliations: SIAA (1896-1921), SoCon (1921-53), ACC (1953-)
Overall Win Record: 798-472-45 (.624)
Bowl Record: 27-23 (.540)
Colors: Orange and "regalia" purple
Stadium: Clemson Memorial Stadium (81,500 capacity)
Current Head Coach: Dabo Swinney
Notable Historic Coaches: John Heisman, Jess Neely, Frank Howard, Charley Pell, Danny Ford, Tommy Bowden
Notable Historic Players: Dwight Clark, William "The Refrigerator" and Michael Dean Perry, Chris Gardocki, Brian Dawkins, Woody Dantzler, Gaines Adams, Tajh Boyd, Grady Jarrett, DeAndre Hopkins, Deshaun Watson, Isaiah Simmons, Trevor Lawrence, Travis Etienne
National Championships: 3 (1981, 2016, 2018)
Conference Championships: 27 (4 SIAA - 1900, 1902-03, 1906; 2 SoCon - 1940, 1948; 21 ACC - 1956, 1958-59, 1965-67, 1978, 1981-82, 1986-88, 1991, 2011, 2015-20, 2022)

Clemson University was originally founded as an agriculture/military academy built on the former home of controversial vice president John C. Calhoun before a civilian retool in the 1950s. Its football team has been the ACC's traditional power since the formation of the conference, winning 21 ACC titles. Prior to being a charter member of the ACC, it was a charter member of SoCon and before that a member of the SIAA. It had eras of success in each conference. John Heisman himself coached the team to conference titles in the early 1900s and gave them the "Tiger" moniker (though no Clemson athlete has yet won the Heisman Trophy). Frank Howard shaped the program into what it is today during his thirty-year reign from 1940-69 and implemented most of its most well-known traditions. After the program slumped in the '70s, 33-year-old coach Danny Ford brought the team to an unexpected national title in 1981, though NCAA violations and sanctions in later years cost the school some prestige. While the team was fairly middling in the '90s and 2000s thanks to the rise of Florida State, coach Dabo Swinney and generational QB talents Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence made the Tigers one of the only real challengers to the SEC's (and Alabama's) dominance of the 2010s national championships, leading the school to titles in '16 and '18 and coming a game short in '15 and '19. The Tigers' six-year ACC title and CFP berth streak ended in 2021.

Clemson's Memorial Stadium (located on campus) is one of the largest and most iconic stadiums in American sports. Originally built in 1942 as a 20,000-person venue, constant renovations and expansions over the years have quadrupled that size, resulting in steep and towering stands that earned the stadium the nickname "Death Valley". In the '60s, Coach Howard introduced the tradition of "Howard's Rock", having the team all rub a large stone from the real Death Valley in California before running down the hill on the east side of the stadium onto the field to the sound of cannon fire. The team continues that tradition today, decades after the hill was filled in with seats. Other traditions include the "Gathering at the Paw" (where, win or lose, Clemson students storm the field after home games to stand on the team's tiger paw logo), the "Graveyard" (a field of tombstones commemorating each Clemson away win against a ranked opponent), and a fierce intrastate rivalry with South Carolina that culminates in the annual Palmetto Bowl.

Duke Blue Devils

Fight, Blue Devils, Fight!

Location: Durham, NC
School Established: 1838^note
Conference Affiliations: Ind. (1889-94, 1920-29), SoCon (1930-52), ACC (1953-)
Overall Win Record: 537-556-31 (.492)
Bowl Record: 8-8 (.500)
Colors: Duke blue and white
Stadium: Wallace Wade Stadium (capacity 40,004)
Current Head Coach: Manny Diaz
Notable Historic Coaches: Howard Jones, Wallace Wade, Bill Murray, Steve Spurrier, David Cutcliffe
Notable Historic Players: Clarence "Ace" Parker, Tommy Prothro, George McAfee, Sonny Jurgensen, Mike Junkin, Dave Brown (QB), Keith Gill, Patrick Mannelly
National Championships: 0^note
Conference Championships: 17 (10 SoCon - 1933, 1935-36, 1938-39, 1941, 1943-45, 1952; 7 ACC - 1953-55, 1960-62, 1989)

Duke University is better known as one of the most prestigious academic institutions in the U.S. than a football school, and is likely even better known for its men's basketball program that won five national championships during the four-decade tenure of coach Mike Krzyzewski.^note Their football team, on the other hand, has been the Butt-Monkey of the ACC for decades. After a slow start to the program, the school accomplished a major coup by hiring successful Alabama coach Wallace Wade in 1931 after joining SoCon. Wade led the team for most of the next two decades and his "Iron Dukes" dominated the conference and went unscored upon in 1938 until losing in the Rose Bowl. His successor, Bill Murray, kept the team dominant in the early years of the ACC. The program has essentially been in freefall since then, only briefly rebounding under Steve Spurrier, who left to coach his alma mater as soon as he led the Devils to their last conference title. Duke posted consecutive no-win seasons in 2000-01 in the midst of a 23-game losing streak, then had another winless season in 2006 wedged between two one-win years; this makes them the only FBS program to have two streaks of 20+ losses in their entire history, let alone in such proximity. Duke had a modest resurgence in The New '10s under David Cutcliffe, even making the conference title game in 2013 only to get curbstomped by eventual national champion Florida State; even Cutcliffe still had a losing record at Duke when he was let go after 2021. While they had a minor resurgence afterwards, the program has struggled to hold on to talent for more than a season or two.

On the plus side, Duke still has some of the highest graduation rates for its student athletes. Incidentally, Duke has the second-smallest undergraduate enrollment in the Power Five (about 6,500), ahead of only Wake Forest. The "Blue Devil" name comes from an elite French military alpine unit that several Duke students observed during their WWI service, though their mascot is now just a traditional devil. The team has played in Wallace Wade Stadium since 1929, which was renamed after the school's greatest coach in 1967. The university maintains solid rivalries with the other North Carolina "Tobacco Road" schools; Duke and North Carolina (with campuses around 8 miles away from each other) are the closest Power Five football teams geographically.

Florida State Seminoles

Go Noles!

Location: Tallahassee, FL
School Established: 1851^note
Conference Affiliations: SIAA (1902-04), Ind. (1947, 1951-91), Dixie (1948-50), ACC (1992-)
Overall Win Record: 586-287-18 (.668)
Bowl Record: 29-18-2 (.612)
Colors: Garnet (red-purple) and gold
Stadium: Doak Campbell Stadium (79,560 capacity)
Current Head Coach: Mike Norvell
Notable Historic Coaches: Tom Nugent, Bill Peterson, Bobby Bowden, Jimbo Fisher
Notable Historic Players: Burt Reynolds, Lee Corso, Fred Biletnikoff, Robert Urich, Ron Sellers, Mack Brown, Gary Huff, Ron Simmons, Deion Sanders, Sammie Smith, LeRoy Butler, Terrell Buckley, Charlie Ward, Derrick Brooks, Walter Jones, Warrick Dunn, Peter Boulware, Andre Wadsworth, Sebastian Janikowski, Chris Weinke, Jamal Reynolds, Anquan Boldin, Adrian McPherson, Christian Ponder, E.J. Manuel, Bjorn Werner, Jameis Winston, Rashad Greene, Roberto Aguayo, Jalen Ramsey, Dalvin Cook, Jordan Travis, McKenzie Milton
National Championships: 3 (1993, 1999, 2013)^note
Conference Championships: 19 (3 Dixie - 1948-50; 16 ACC - 1992-2000, 2002-03, 2005, 2012-14, 2023)

The oldest institute of higher learning in the state of Florida, Florida State University had a delayed start to its football program due to spending much of its history as a women's college. However, once the post-World War II GI Bill increased college demand in the post-war era, the school brought back male students and with them its football team. While Florida State has had great success in a variety of athletics, including being home to a baseball program that is the second-winningest in college history but still hasn't won a championship, football is their crown jewel. This is thanks in no small part to HC Bobby Bowden, who led the team for over 30 years (1976-2009) and shaped it into one of the most dominant teams in the nation. From 1982-2017, Florida State appeared in a record 36 straight bowl games; from 1985-95, they won each of those bowls, also a record. In the '90s, FSU joined the ACC after four decades as an independent, put up the best winning percentage in major-college football in the decade^*, and won at least a share of the conference championship nine straight times from 1992-2000 and thrice more in the 2000s. During that era, the Seminoles appeared in five national championship games and won two, both under unique Heisman-winning QBs, Charlie Ward (the only Heisman winner to enter the NBA) in '93 and Chris Weinke (the oldest Heisman winner, a 28-year-old former minor league baseball player) in '99.

Following Bowden's retirement (due in part to an academic cheating scandal that resulted in several rescinded wins), Jimbo Fisher led a resurgent Seminoles to a third national title in 2013 with a third Heisman QB, freshman Jameis Winston. Unfortunately, the Seminoles increasingly garnered a reputation as the lowest performing academic team in the Power Five, Fisher left the school in 2017, and the once-proud program struggled for several years. They eventually rebounded in the early 2020s, posting an undefeated conference title run in 2023, though an injury to their starting QB and the perceived need to leave room for an SEC team made the Seminoles the only undefeated Power Five champion to miss out on a spot in the 4-team CFP. Besides resulting in a wave of opt-outs that contributed to them losing their subsequent bowl game by the widest margin in bowl history, this only added further pressure for the school to find a way to get out of the ACC and move to a more esteemed conference.

Football is so central to Florida State's identity that the massive Doak Campbell Stadium is embedded within University Center, a sprawling brick complex that contains most of the school's main offices. "The Doak" is named after the president of the school at the time of the stadium's construction in 1950, who oversaw the school's postwar co-ed transformation but was also a virulent racist who fought hard against racial integration. There's recently been some pressure to name the whole stadium after Bowden, since his name doesn't carry the same Values Dissonance as Campbell, the program and stadium only grew to its current size when he arrived, the field itself is already named after him, and there's already a statue and a three-story stained glass window of him on the stadium. The site also has a "Sod Cemetery" where the team buries pieces of turf taken from fields after particularly hard-fought or significant victories. FSU enjoys strong intrastate rivalries with both Florida and Miami.

Now, about the name: FSU adopted the "Seminole" name after Florida's most famous indigenous tribe, which successfully resisted European and American colonization of the peninsula for decades. Like most uses of Native American names and iconography for sports mascots, the Seminole nickname has been under scrutiny and criticism from several indigenous groups for decades. However, FSU is in an interesting position regarding their nickname. Unlike most teams, they have the official endorsem*nt of the Seminole Tribe, having consulted with them about the depiction and use of their image since the '70s (around the time the tribal leadership developed the first Native American Casino and became extremely wealthy), which gave the school an exemption from the sanctions the NCAA placed on other schools with Native mascots that led to them being otherwise phased out in the early 21st century.^note Rather than a typical "mascot", Florida State has a "symbol", with a student dressed as a real Seminole leader Osceola who rides a horse named Renegade to midfield and plants a burning spear in the turf to start games. If you're wondering where the Kansas City Chiefs and the Atlanta Braves got their famous Tomahawk War Chants and cheering from, this is the school that started it.^note

Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets

What's the good word?^response

Location: Atlanta, GA
School Established: 1885^note
Conference Affiliations: Ind. (1892-93, 1914-15, 1964-82), SIAA (1894-1913, 1916-21), SoCon (1922-32), SEC (1933-63), ACC (1983-)
Overall Win Record: 756-540-43 (.581)
Bowl Record: 26–20 (.565)
Colors: Tech gold and white
Stadium: Bobby Dodd Stadium (capacity 55,000)
Current Head Coach: Brent Key
Notable Historic Coaches: John Heisman, William Alexander, Bobby Dodd, Bobby Ross, George O'Leary
Notable Historic Players: Clint Castleberry, Frank Broyles, Billy Shaw, Eddie McAshan, Ken Whisenhunt, Pat Swilling, Dorsey Levens, Joe Hamilton, Joe Anoa'i, Calvin Johnson, Harrison Butker
National Championships: 4 (1917, 1928, 1952, 1990)^note
Conference Championships: 15 (5 SIAA – 1916-18, 1920-21; 3 SoCon – 1922, 1927-28; 5 SEC – 1939, 1943-44, 1951-52; 2 ACC – 1990, 1998^*)^note

Georgia Institute of Technology sits in the heart of Midtown Atlanta. Their football program has a storied history, with some of the strongest traditions in college history and several ups and downs over the decades. They experienced their first major success in the SIAA under John Heisman in the first part of the 20th century (though the school has never produced a Heisman Trophy winner). His 16-year tenure (1904-19) saw three especially notable events. First, Grant Field opened as a rudimentary stadium in 1905, with the first permanent stands opened in 1913^note. Tech plays at this very site today, making Bobby Dodd Stadium the oldest in FBS. Second, Tech scored the most lopsided win in college football history in 1916, annihilating a makeshift team from Cumberland, a small school in the Nashville area, 222–0. Finally, the team won their first national title in 1917, the first to be claimed by a Southern school.^note After Heisman left Atlanta, William Alexander kept the ship afloat through 25 seasons (1920-44), leading the program to become charter members of both SoCon and the SEC and securing eight conference championships and a national title in 1928. He was followed by Bobby Dodd, the stadium's current namesake who coached for 22 years and amassed more wins than any coach in the school's history. However, Dodd's personal frustration with the SEC's refusal to curb the other members recruiting policies led to Tech's president pulling them out of the SEC in 1964. They then played as an independent until joining the ACC in 1979 (with football starting conference play in 1983). The Jackets managed to have a brief renaissance in the late '80s, capped off by a split national title in 1990 under Bobby Ross, before settling in as generally a mid-pack ACC team.

The Yellow Jackets are likely best known for their venomous rivalry with Georgia; known as "Clean, Old Fashioned Hate", it is one of the most bitter rivalries in a sport already known for taking things too seriously, even if it has historically been rather one-sided against Tech. However, they have many other, more positive traditions, most notably the Ramblin' Wreck, a 1930 Ford Model A that drives ahead of the team at the start of every home game.

Louisville Cardinals

L1C4!^meaning

Location: Louisville, KY
School Established: 1798^note
Conference Affiliations: Ind. (1912–62^note, 1975–95), MVC (1963–74), CUSA (1996–2004), Big East (2005–12), American (2013), ACC (2014–)
Overall Win Record: 550–497–17 (.525)
Bowl Record: 12–13–1 (.481)
Colors: Red and black
Stadium: L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium (capacity 60,800)
Current Head Coach: Jeff Brohm^note
Notable Historic Coaches: Frank Camp, Lee Corso, Howard Schnellenberger, Bobby Petrino
Notable Historic Players: Johnny Unitas, Tom Jackson, Mark Clayton, Frank Minnifield, Ted Washington, David Akers, T.C. Stallings, Elvis Dumervil, Amobi Okoye, Gerod Holliman, Lamar Jackson, Jaire Alexander
National Championships: 0
Conference Championships: 8 (2 MVC – 1970, 1972; 3 CUSA – 2000–01, 2004; 3 Big East – 2006, 2011–12)

The University of Louisville (or just "U of L") traces its history back to the late 1700s, though it took several starts and stops for it to take its current shape as a public state school. The Cards likewise had a rocky start to their football program, putting it on pause several times before Frank Camp revived it after World War II. Camp coached the independent program for over two decades, bringing them to a single bowl game. For decades, U of L was known pretty much only as where Johnny Unitas got his start, Lee Corso had his only real success as a head coach with two conference titles during the school's time in the Missouri Valley Conference, and Denny Crum coached a great basketball program. It gained more fame for football when Howard Schnellenberger tried to replicate his success in Miami by reviving his hometown school. He quit after the school joined CUSA in 1996, believing being in a weak conference would ensure they couldn't compete for a national title, but that decision ultimately helped make the Cards bowl contenders. Bobby Petrino took the team to national prominence, helping it make the leap to the Big East in 2005 and win the conference title the following year; he jumped ship to the pros, and the Cards briefly collapsed in his wake. After other coaches rebuilt the program to strength in the collapsing Big East, the school entered the ACC, brought Petrino back, and welcomed its first Heisman winner, electric multi-threat QB Lamar Jackson. Petrino's team collapsed without Jackson, however, and the program has mostly regressed since (though it made the ACC title game in 2023).

Just like in basketball, the school's fiercest rival is Kentucky, though the intrastate opponents only started playing each other regularly in 1994.^note They have played in what's now L&N Stadium since 1998. Originally a horseshoe, it has undergone several expansions to reflect the recent ascent of Louisville athletics (and potentially to distract from their many off-field controversies, most of them involving their declining basketball program).

Miami Hurricanes

It's all about the U!

Location: Coral Gables, FL (campus); Miami Gardens, FL (stadium)
School Established: 1925
Conference Affiliations: Ind. (1927-28, 1942-90), SIAA (1929-41), Big East (1991-2003), ACC (2004-)
Overall Win Record: 655-389-19 (.625)
Bowl Record: 19–24 (.442)
Colors: Orange, green, and white
Stadium: Hard Rock Stadium (capacity 65,326)^note
Current Head Coach: Mario Cristobal
Notable Historic Coaches: Lou Saban, Howard Schnellenberger, Jimmy Johnson, Butch Davis, Dennis Erickson, Larry co*ker
Notable Historic Players: Don James, Jim Otto, Ted Hendricks, Chuck Foreman, Burgess Owens, Ottis Anderson, Jim Kelly, Larry Pfohl, Bernie Kosar, Vinny Testaverde, Alonzo Highsmith, Jerome Brown, Jeff Feagles, Michael Irvin, Steve Walsh, Cortez Kennedy, Russell Maryland, Dwayne Johnson, Gino Toretta, Warren Sapp, Ray Lewis, Edgerrin James, Yatil Green, Reggie Wayne, Dan Morgan, Ed Reed, Clinton Portis, Jeremy Shockey, Ken Dorsey, Willis McGahee, Andre Johnson, Jerome McDougle, Vince Wilfork, Frank Gore, Sean Taylor, Kellen Winslow II, Devin Hester, Greg Olsen, Calais Campbell, Jimmy Graham, Ereck Flowers, Brad Kaaya
National Championships: 5 (1983, 1987, 1989, 1991, 2001)^note
Conference Championships: 9 (Big East - 1991-92, 1994-96, 2000-03)

The University of Miami is a large private school that was a football (and baseball) powerhouse from the 1980s through the 2000s, having so much success that only the most diehard college fans need to emphasize that it's the FBS "Miami" from Florida rather than Ohio (though its location in the city probably helps with that). In fact, Miami was so dominant for a time that students and fans now just call it "The U"; all other universities need not apply.^note Its football program wasn't always so renowned, however, and in fact was on the verge of collapse or Division I-AA relegation after a fairly disastrous 1970s. Coach Howard Schnellenberger saved the program after his hiring in 1979, delivering on a promise to get the school a national championship in five years before immediately departing for a job opportunity in the pros. This set a precedent that was followed by both of his successors, Jimmy Johnson and Dennis Erickson, who both took the Canes to national titles (1987 and 1989/91, respectively) but left quickly for pro coaching gigs. The U likewise developed a reputation as an NFL talent factory and produced two Heisman-winning QBs, Vinny Testaverde and Gino Toretta. For nearly a full decade (October 1985–September 1994), the Canes did not lose a single home game at the Orange Bowl, a 58-game streak that is the longest in NCAA history. After nearly half a century as an independent, they joined the Big East in 1991.

At the same time, the school also developed a reputation as a Wretched Hive whose programs were wracked with corruption from too many scandals to list. After sanctions led to a relative lull under Butch Davis (who still leaped to the pros like his predecessors), Larry co*ker was hired in 2001 and replicated Erickson's feat of bringing Miami a national title in his debut season thanks to one of the most stacked rosters ever seen in college football; Miami produced more first round draft picks from 2001-04 than any program ever in a four-year stretch. However, soon after moving to the ACC in 2004, the school's culture and corruption issues caught up with it; continued scandals and sanctions led to co*ker's resignation after '06. This was paired with the 2008 demolition of the Orange Bowl, a venue that had been the program's home for 70 seasons and hosted multiple Super Bowls, so that the city could build a ballpark to keep the Marlins in town. The Canes had to move into the home stadium of their former Orange Bowl co-tenants, the Miami Dolphins, which is located nearly twice the distance from campus than their old home, and the program's success has been greatly muted ever since.

The Hurricanes are the Trope Maker (or at least Trope Codifier) of the practice of teams running through "smoke" (fire extinguisher exhaust) to enter the field, originally intended as an evocation of their unique nickname (which always sounds badass until an actual major hurricane devastates South Florida every decade or so). Their more traditional mascot is an ibis. Miami maintains very competitive rivalries with Florida and Florida State.

NC State Wolfpack

State fight!

Location: Raleigh, NC
School Established: 1887^note
Conference Affiliations: Ind. (1892-97), SIAA (1898-1906), SAIAA^* (1907-21), SoCon (1922-52), ACC (1953-)
Overall Win Record: 640-600-55 (.515)
Bowl Record: 17-17-1 (.500)
Colors: Red and white
Stadium: Carter–Finley Stadium (57,583 capacity)
Current Head Coach: Dave Doeren
Notable Historic Coaches: Buck Shaw, Earle Edwards, Lou Holtz, Monte Kiffin
Notable Historic Players: Roman Gabriel, Dennis Byrd (1960s), Bill Cowher, Torry Holt, Philip Rivers, Mario Williams, Russell Wilson^*, Christopher Dunn, Grayson McCall
National Championships: 0
Conference Championships: 11 (3 SAIAA - 1907, 1910, 1913; 1 SoCon - 1927; 7 ACC - 1957, 1963-65, 1968, 1973, 1979)

North Carolina State University is the largest college in the Carolinas, but it's mainly known in athletics as a basketball school (most notably for their 1983 national championship win with a buzzer beater dunk). Its football program is old but generally unaccomplished, with the dubious distinction of having the most appearances in the final AP poll (13) without a Top 10 finish (their best final rank was #11 in 1974). Their longest-serving coach, Earle Edwards, led the team to four conference titles after the school helped form the ACC but retired with a losing record after 16 seasons. Lou Holtz earned another conference title after him, which helped to springboard him to his later success. Bo Rein brought the school its last conference title in 1979 shortly before his death in a plane crash. The Wolfpack hasn't been a real force since, but it has been generally decent and developed a reputation as a good QB development school in the 2000s after producing NFL superstars Philip Rivers and Russell Wilson.

The school's unique nickname is meant to describe their fanbase, which a visiting fan unfavorably compared to a pack of wolves in the 1920s. The team's played in Carter-Finley Stadium (named after school donors) since 1966 and has strong rivalries with North Carolina and the other state schools.

North Carolina Tar Heels

Tar Heel Born!

Location: Chapel Hill, NC
School Established: 1789^note
Conference Affiliations: Ind. (1888-91, 1895-98, 1902-21)^note, SIAA (1892-94, 1899-1902), SoCon (1922-52), ACC (1953-)
Overall Win Record: 729-569-54 (.559)
Bowl Record: 15–23 (.395)
Colors: Carolina blue and white
Stadium: Kenan Memorial Stadium (capacity 50,500)
Current Head Coach: Mack Brown
Notable Historic Coaches: Gene McEver, Jim Tatum, Butch Davis
Notable Historic Players: Chris Hanburger, John Swofford, Lawrence Taylor, Ethan Horton, Julius Peppers, Jeff Saturday, Ryan Sims, Mitchell Trubisky, Sam Howell
National Championships: 0
Conference Championships: 8 (3 SoCon – 1922, 1926, 1949; 5 ACC – 1963, 1971-72, 1977, 1980)^note

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill^note is one of the nation's oldest and most academically renowned public universities. It is likewise a powerhouse of D-I athletics, with 50 national championships split between programs that include one of the greatest in college basketball history (7 national titles,^note the second-highest all-time win percentage, and a host of all-time great alumni including Michael Jordan), the greatest in American women's soccer (22 national titles^note and their own host of all-time great alums, most notably Mia Hamm) and very esteemed women's field hockey (9) and men's lacrosse (5) teams. Their football program is... generally less renowned, though it has experienced several notable peaks and valleys. The Tar Heels' biggest contribution to football history was being the very first college team to successfully use the forward pass in 1895; it was also a founding member of the SoCon and ACC. Mack Brown launched his successful HC career with a decade-long tenure (1988-97) before moving on to Texas, only to return to the school in 2019 after coming out of retirement.

The "Tar Heel" nickname is an old term for North Carolinians in general adopted by the school in the late 19th century. Their mascot, however, is an actual ram named Rameses whose horns are painted Carolina blue; the team manager brought one to games in 1924 to celebrate the play of a player known for his "battering ram" running style, and the tradition stuck when the kicker rubbed its head before scoring a game-winning field goal. The university has long-standing intrastate rivalries against the other "Tobacco Road" schools, most notably Duke, and also holds historic rivalries with Virginia and South Carolina. Their on-campus stadium was initially built in 1924 and named after the father of a prominent donor; said figure helped lead a murderous white supremacist coup in the 1890s against a local majority-Black government, leading to the school officially altering the name to refer to the original donor in 2018.

Pittsburgh Panthers

Hail to Pitt!

Location: Pittsburgh, PA
School Established: 1787^note
Conference Affiliations: Ind. (1890-1990), Big East (1991-2012), ACC (2013-)
Overall Win Record: 751-560-42 (.571)
Bowl Record: 15-22 (.405)
Colors: Blue and gold
Stadium: Acrisure Stadium (capacity 68,400)^note
Current Head Coach: Pat Narduzzi
Notable Historic Coaches: Pop Warner, Jock Sutherland, Clark Shaughnessy, Johnny Majors, Jackie Sherrill, Todd Graham
Notable Historic Players: Jock Sutherland, Marshall Goldberg, Joe Schmidt, Mike Ditka, Fred Cox, Marty Schottenheimer, Tony Dorsett, Rickey Jackson, Mark May, Russ Grimm, Jim Covert, Dan Marino, Chris Doleman, Craig "Ironhead" Heyward, Mark Stepnoski, Curtis Martin, Larry Fitzgerald, Andy Lee, Darrelle Revis, LeSean McCoy, Aaron Donald, Nathan Peterman, James Conner, Damar Hamlin, Kenny Pickett
National Championships: 9 (1915-16, 1918, 1929, 1931, 1934, 1936-37, 1976)^note
Conference Championships: 3 (2 Big East - 2004, 2010; 1 ACC - 2021)^note

The University of Pittsburgh (typically abbreviated as just "Pitt") is the oldest university west of the Allegheny Mountains. It was a very old college football powerhouse that was dominant from the 1900s to the 1930s, winning eight claimed national championships (and several more unclaimed) under the successive tenures of legendary coaches Pop Warner (1914-23, including three undefeated seasons from 1915-17) and former Pitt All-American Jock Sutherland (1924-38). The program also introduced numerous football innovations, including being the first team to wear numbers on their jerseys in 1908, and they were the featured team in both the first live radio broadcast of a college football game in 1921 and the first live national TV broadcast of any sporting event against Duke in 1951. However, the Panthers haven't been consistently strong since Sutherland quit to protest the school's intentional deemphasis on the program. Pitt saw a brief resurgence after hiring coach Johnny Majors in 1973 and produced a ninth national title and a Heisman winner in RB Tony Dorsett in 1976. Majors immediately signed with Tennessee after that year, and while Pitt stayed competitive under Jackie Sherrill and QB Dan Marino for a few more years, the Panthers returned to the middle of the pack by the mid-'80s. After decades as an independent, Pitt joined the Big East in 1991 and made the jump to the ACC in 2013 after the former conference fell apart. Despite not contending nationally at the college level for nearly half a century, Pitt has continued to punch well above its weight class in terms of producing high level talent: it sits in the top five of all schools in terms of players who have entered the Pro Hall of Fame. However, because the NCAA does not officially award football championships, Pitt is one of four power-conference schools that has never won an NCAA team championship.^note

Pitt has one of the more unique campuses of any American university. Located right in the middle of its eponymous city, the school had to build up rather than out; indeed, the school's most famous feature is its centerpiece Cathedral of Learning, a 42-story Gothic tower that is the tallest academic building in the Western Hemisphere and is lit up gold after Pitt football victories. The football team played out of the on-campus Pitt Stadium starting in 1925, which the school shared with the Pittsburgh Steelers in the years before Three Rivers Stadium was built across the Allegheny River. However, as Pitt Stadium aged, the Panthers' popularity waned. As the school needed more student housing, the university demolished its stadium after 1999 and moved in with the Steelers; their presence at the new Heinz Field (now Acrisure Stadium) contributed to the Steelers having some of the worst turf in the NFL through the 2000s. Pitt's fiercest athletic rivals are West Virginia (located roughly 75 miles apart; games between them are known as "the Backyard Brawl") and Penn State (which was so acrimonious the schools had to take over a decade off from facing each other).

SMU Mustangs

Pony Ears!

Location: University Park, TX^note
School Established: 1911
Conference Affiliations: TIAA (1915–17), SWC (1918-95)^note, WAC (1996–2004), CUSA (2005–12), American (2013–23), ACC (2024–)
Overall Win Record: 537–569–54 (.486)
Bowl Record: 7–11–1 (.395)
Colors: Red and blue
Stadium: Gerald J. Ford Stadium (capacity 32,000)^note
Current Head Coach: Rhett Lashlee
Notable Historic Coaches: Hayden Fry, Bobby Collins, June Jones, Forrest Gregg
Notable Historic Players: Doak Walker, Kyle Rote, Raymond Berry, Forrest Gregg, Don Meredith, Jim Duggan, Eric Dickerson, David Stanley, Sean Stopperich, Josh McCown, Thomas Morstead, Trey Quinn
National Championships: 3 (1935, 1981–82)^note
Conference Championships: 12 (11 SWC – 1923, 1926, 1931, 1935, 1940, 1947–48, 1966, 1981–82, 1984; 1 American – 2023)

Southern Methodist University was founded as the flagship university of the Methodist church's southern branch, though it filed to split from the formal control of the church in 2019.^note The Dallas-based school is otherwise most famous for being the home of the George W. Bush presidential center and for its unique football history. The Mustangs were once a powerhouse, notably claiming a national title in 1935, producing Heisman-winning back Doak Walker in 1948, and claiming another two titles in the early '80s under coaches Ron Meyer and Bobby Collins. However, SMU fell to near irrelevance almost immediately after those dominant seasons thanks to the infamous "death penalty" issued in 1987. For the first and only time in its history, the NCAA decided to terminate the SMU football program after it was discovered that the school had been paying the players on its national-title contending team out of a slush fund while under probation for other issues. The program was barred from all play in 1987 and from home games in 1988, but the school decided not to play at all in the latter season due to inability to field a remotely competitive team. The Mustangs immediately plummeted to the college football basem*nt when they returned thanks to the heavy sanctions, and they spent decades struggling to even get above the .500 mark. SMU managed its first 10-win season in over 30 years in 2019 and won its first post-death penalty conference title in 2023, its last season in The American.

For most of its history, SMU played in the Cotton Bowl (aka "The House That Doak Built") across town. After playing there for over forty years, the Mustangs moved into the Dallas Cowboys' stadium in 1978, just in time for their run of remarkable success; the Death Penalty forced them to return to their much smaller on-campus stadium and the increasingly outdated Cotton Bowl before building their current home in 2000.^note The consequences of the penalty ensured that SMU was left behind after the dissolution of the SWC. The school has been constantly campaigning to rejoin their former conference mates in the Big 12, only to be left out during each realignment. This has been incredibly frustrating, as the Mustangs first had to watch hated crosstown rival TCU and geographically distant West Virginia join in 2012, then saw three members of their own conference (including Houston) successfully apply in 2021. For a short time in 2023, SMU was heavily linked with a move to the Pac-12 before that conference essentially collapsed. SMU's ridiculously wealthy alumni base allowed the school to make the ACC an offer that eventually proved too good to pass up—after joining in 2024, SMU will not take any ACC media revenue for its first nine years of conference membership.

Stanford Cardinal

Fear the Tree!

Location: Stanford, CA
School Established: 1891
Conference Affiliations: Ind. (1891–1905), Pac-12 (1919–2023),^note ACC (2024–)
Overall Win Record: 670–496–49 (.572)
Bowl Record: 15–14–1 (.517)
Colors: Cardinal red and white
Stadium: Stanford Stadium (50,424)
Current Head Coach: Troy Taylor
Notable Historic Coaches: Walter Camp, Fielding H. Yost, Pop Warner, Clark Shaughnessy, John Ralston, Bill Walsh, Dennis Green, Buddy Teevens, Jim Harbaugh, David Shaw
Notable Historic Players: Ernie Nevers, Ernie Caddel, Frankie Albert, Bobby Garrett, John Brodie, Gene Washington, Jim Plunkett, Mike Boryla, James Lofton, Darrin Nelson, John Elway, Steve Stenstrom, John Lynch, Cory Booker, Glyn Milburn, Coy Gibbs, David Shaw, Scott Frost, Troy Walters, Toby Gerhart, Tavita Pritchard, Richard Sherman, Andrew Luck, Jonathan Martin, Zach Ertz, Stepfan Taylor, Christian McCaffrey, Solomon Thomas, Bryce Love
National Championships: 2 (1926, 1940)
Conference Championships: 15 (1924, 1926-27, 1933-35, 1940, 1951, 1970-71, 1992, 1999, 2012-13, 2015)

Stanford University is easily the most academically prestigious school to also host an FBS football program, regularly ranking in the top 10 universities in the nation. That's not to say that they are any slouches athletically; in fact, the situation is quite the opposite. Stanford's sports teams have collectively earned the school the "Directors' Cup" given to the D-I program for the strongest overall athletics program nearly every year since the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics began awarding it in 1993 (the exceptions being 1993-94, 2020-21, and 2021–22, when they came in second place). This dominance is largely because the private university can afford to sponsor 36 sports teams. These teams have won the school 135 NCAA championships as of April 2024, the most of any D-I school, with at least one every year since 1976.^note

Their football program has not contributed to that latter number, but only because the NCAA doesn't recognize FBS national championships—their team is still one of the more storied in the West, with a long history that includes playing in the first ever bowl game (where they were blown out by Michigan). The school claimed two football national titles in the early 20th century, the first under Pop Warner himself in 1926. Their second in 1940 was one of the more improbable in college football history, as Clark Shaughnessy inherited a team that had won just a single game the year prior and immediately led his "Wow Boys" on an undefeated campaign thanks to his innovative use of the T-formation, leading to it being adopted nationwide. Shaughnessy left after the following season, and the program never reached such heights again. Its performance has varied tremendously: the team went completely winless in '47 and '60, but it also produced Heisman QB Jim Plunkett in 1970 and launched the careers of great pro-level coaches like Bill Walsh and Dennis Green.^note Generationally talented QB John Elway couldn't get the school to bowl eligibility from 1979-82, though that was due in part to "The Play" in his final college game, when the Stanford band's early storming of the field in their game against hated Bay Area rival Cal caused enough confusion to allow the Golden Bears to score, costing the Cardinal their needed sixth win. After several decades of mediocrity and worse, coach Jim Harbaugh and QB Andrew Luck led the program back to national relevance in the late 2000s, a position Harbaugh's successor David Shaw kept them in for several more years. However, the program has since regressed, a phenomenon widely attributed to Stanford's high academic standards making it difficult to recruit player transfers, increasingly crucial to the modern college football landscape. This decline in performance likely contributed to Stanford being one of the last Pac-12 schools to land a new conference, although its incredibly wealthy alumni base, academic prestige, and prowess in Olympic sports led to it eventually receiving an ACC invite.

A few things about the mascot, one of the most unique in college sports: "Cardinal" is singular, not plural, as it's a reference to the color of their uniform rather than the bird. From 1930-71, the school went by the "Indians" before indigenous and student protests led them to revert to the "Cardinals" as a placeholder. Students then lobbied hard for the school to take the name "Robber Barons" as a critique of the school's namesake Corrupt Corporate Executive, industrialist Leland Stanford;^note the school refused, settling on the singular name in 1981. During that whole debate, a member of the band began dressing up at halftime as the school's official seal, a giant tree, as a joke, but the tradition stuck. The school's mascot has been a deliberately shabby-looking tree with legs ever since, the wearer of which has to undergo training to make sure they can withstand all sorts of physical abuse that is frequently put upon it by both Cal and Stanford's own students.

Syracuse Orange

Cuse is in the House, Oh My God!

Location: Syracuse, NY
School Established: 1870^note
Conference Affiliations: Ind. (1889-1990^note), Big East (1991-2012), ACC (2013-)
Overall Win Record: 743-577-49 (.563)
Bowl Record: 16-11-1 (.589)
Colors: Orange and blue
Stadium: JMA Wireless Dome (capacity 49,262)^note
Current Head Coach: Fran Brown
Notable Historic Coaches: Howard Jones, Tad Jones, Ben Schwartzwalder, Dick MacPherson
Notable Historic Players: Pappy Waldorf, Vic Hanson, Duffy Daugherty, Wilmeth Sidat-Singh, Jim Ringo, Jim Brown, Ernie Davis, John Mackey, Jim Nance, Floyd Little, Larry Csonka, Tom Coughlin, Art Monk, Joe Morris, Gary Anderson, Tim Green, Don McPherson, Ted Gregory, Daryl Johnston, Marvin Harrison, Olindo Mare, Donovan McNabb, Dwight Freeney, Quinn Ojinnaka, Chandler Jones, Andre Szmyt
National Championships: 1 (1959)
Conference Championships: 5 (Big East - 1996-98, 2004, 2012)^note

The private Syracuse University (affectionately "Cuse") in upstate New York is better known in athletics for its prestigious men's basketball program (with three national championships and an active streak of 52 straight winning seasons), dominant men's lacrosse program (with 11 NCAA championships^note), and the most prolific school of sports journalism in the nation. Its football team has been something of an afterthought in recent years, but it wasn't always that way. In the early 20th century, their team was quite strong, helped by the progressive college being one of the first schools to racially integrate its athletic program. SU truly ascended under Ben Schwartzwalder, who coached the team for over two decades (1949-73), won a national title in 1959, and made Syracuse into an absolute factory for legendary running backs. Several of these players, most notably the legendary trio of Jim Brown, Ernie Davis, and Floyd Little, wore #44. The number's legend only grew when Davis became the first African-American player (and only Orangeman) to win the Heisman, only to tragically die of cancer shortly after being drafted #1 overall. The program faded in the '70s, but Dick MacPherson coached them back to bowl contention in the '80s (including going undefeated in '87). After decades as an independent, they joined the Big East in 1991 and performed well there, winning three straight conference titles with Donovan McNabb under center. Unfortunately, the team regressed in the mid-2000s and has never fully recovered, with NCAA sanctions from a pay-to-play scandal only adding to the team's troubles.

The secondary nature of the team's football program is reflected in its stadium arrangement. After playing in the Colosseum-inspired Archbold Stadium for over 70 years, the team was forced to build a new venue in 1980 to retain their Division I-A status. Due to the cold and snowy weather of the region and the popularity of their basketball team, Syracuse built the Carrier Dome, now known as the JMA Wireless Dome, one of the few indoor domes in college football.^* The "Loud House" is arguably more famous for regularly setting college basketball attendance records despite being fairly outdated by most standards; prior to a 2020 renovation, the dome was one of the last remaining structures to sport an inflatable fiberglass roof, making it a maintenance nightmare, and lacked any sort of air conditioning despite Carrier being an HVAC company. Ironically, the entire stadium finally got AC in 2022... just in time for it to be renamed after a locally based 5G infrastructure company.^note

For most of the school's history, their team name was the "Orangemen" (and their women's teams were the "Orangewomen"). Depending on who you ask, the school adopted the color-themed name either because of the Dutch heritage of upstate New York or because it was just a unique color at the time. For decades, the school had a Native American mascot called Big Chief Bill Orange, aka the "Saltine Warrior" (Syracuse, situated on briny Onondaga Lake with several other nearby salt deposits, is called the Salt City). They dropped him in the late '70s as one of the first schools to cave to indigenous criticism of Native mascots. They experimented with a few different mascots before settling with a literal anthropomorphic orange named Otto in the early '80s. The program maintains strong rivalries with Boston College, Pittsburgh, and West Virginia; they used to have intense rivalries with Penn State and neighboring Colgate, but they now rarely play each other.

Virginia Cavaliers

Wahoowa!

Location: Charlottesville, VA
School Established: 1819^note
Conference Affiliations: Ind. (1888-99, 1906-11, 1937-53), EVIAA^* (1900-05), SAIAA (1912-21)^note, SoCon (1921-37), ACC (1953-)
Overall Win Record: 685-640-48 (.516)
Bowl Record: 8–12 (.400)
Colors: Orange and blue
Stadium: Scott Stadium^* (capacity 61,500)
Current Head Coach: Tony Elliott
Notable Historic Coaches: Greasy Neale, George Welsh
Notable Historic Players: Bill Dudley, Henry Jordan, Don Majkowski, Herman Moore, Ronde and Tiki Barber, Thomas Jones, Matt Schaub, Heath Miller, D'Brickashaw Ferguson, Chris Long
National Championships: 0
Conference Championships: 4 (2 SAIAA – 1914-15; 2 ACC – 1989, 1995)^note

The University of Virginia, or simply UVA, is one of the most historic and esteemed institutions of learning in the United States, having been founded by Thomas Jefferson himself as the first secular university in North America. The school also does well in many sports, most notably men's soccer and lacrosse (seven national titles apiece). Their football history has been much spottier. Virginia had a very solid early start as one of the South's first football powerhouses, helping found the SIAA, SoCon, and the ACC and serving as a regional power when the sport was first introduced. However, the Cavaliers (or the "Wahoos", as fans more widely know them) have been a fairly poor team since 1950, when the school chose to deemphasize football; they posted a then-record-tying 28 straight losses across two no-win seasons to round out the decade, a streak only since surpassed by Northwestern. UVA rose back to football prominence during the 19-year tenure of George Welsh in the '80s and '90s, though even then they were never a real force outside of their conference, and they're once again in the middle of the pack at best. In 2022, the college became the site of a deadly on-campus shooting carried out by a former player that claimed the lives of three current players and wounded a fourth.

The Cavs have long and storied rivalries with North Carolina and Virginia Tech. They play in the on-campus Scott Stadium; opened in 1931, it is the oldest stadium in Virginia.

Virginia Tech Hokies

Stick it in!

Location: Blacksburg, VA
School Established: 1872^note
Conference Affiliations: Ind. (1892-97, 1899-1911, 1965-90), SIAA (1898), SAIAA (1912-21), SoCon (1922-64)^note, Big East (1991-2003), ACC (2004-)
Overall Win Record: 773-504-46 (.602)
Bowl Record: 14–21 (.400)
Colors: Chicago maroon and burnt orange
Stadium: Lane Stadium (capacity 65,632)
Current Head Coach: Brent Pry
Notable Historic Coaches: Frank Beamer
Notable Historic Players: Frank Beamer, Bruce Arians, Bruce Smith (DE), Eugene Chung, Jim Druckenmiller, Michael Vick, DeAngelo Hall, Kam Chancellor, David Wilson
National Championships: 0
Conference Championships: 11 (3 SAIAA – 1909, 1916, 1918; 1 SoCon – 1963; 3 Big East – 1995-96, 1999; 4 ACC – 2004, 2007-08, 2010)

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, also known as Virginia Tech, VT or, less frequently, VPI (commonly used until The '80s, when the school gradually phased it out in favor of Virginia Tech, though you still hear VPI on occasion in nostalgic or Malicious Misnaming contexts) is a large public university and senior military college in the foothills of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. The school is tragically best known as the site of one of the deadliest lone gunman mass shootings in American history in 2007. While the school's athletic program is one of only two Power Five schools to have never won a national championship in any team sport,^note the Hokies (more on that name later) have generally been quite good on the football field; as of 2023, they hold the best lifetime win record of any Power Five program to never be selected national champion. The school was a founding member of the SoCon before going independent in 1965. Coach Frank Beamer returned to his alma mater in 1987 after it had been saddled with numerous sanctions for violations and, after a slow start, made the team into a power through the rest of his 29-season tenure. VT football joined the Big East in 1991, and the Hokies fell one game short of a national title in 1999 with superstar QB Michael Vick under center. They next became the dominant team of the ACC for several years after joining in 2004, though the program has receded to the middle of the pack in recent seasons.

Now, about "Hokie": It's a nonsense celebratory word from the team's historic fight song and yet still is an improvement from other name the team used in its early years, the "Fighting Gobblers" (though their mascot remains a turkey). The team is also notable for its pregame entrance, which features cannon fire from "Skipper" (a callback to the school's military roots) and Metallica's "Enter Sandman". The band has taken part in the intro (via prerecorded video) a couple of times.

Wake Forest Demon Deacons

Mother, so Dear!

Location: Winston-Salem, NC
School Established: 1834^note
Conference Affiliations: Ind. (1888-1935)^note, SoCon (1936-52), ACC (1953-)
Overall Win Record: 492-685-33 (.420)
Bowl Record: 11-6 (.647)
Colors: Old gold and black
Stadium: Allegacy Federal Credit Union Stadium (31,500 capacity)^note
Current Head Coach: Dave Clawson
Notable Historic Players: Bill George, Brian Piccolo, Tommy Elrod, Jon Abbate^*, Zac Selmon, Aaron Curry, Nick Sciba, Sam Hartman
National Championships: 0
Conference Championships: 2 (1970, 2006)

Wake Forest University is one of the more prestigious small private schools in the United States; with under 9,000 students, fewer than 5,500 of them being undergraduates, and a roughly 10:1 student-to-faculty ratio, it is the smallest Power Five school by a considerable degree.^* While some of its athletic programs, most notably basketball^note and golf^note have managed to overcome that disadvantage, its football program has not; the Demon Deacons for years had the worst overall historic record in the Power Five, though they've managed to improve their lot in the 21st century enough to raise that number up above Indiana. The 2011 film The 5th Quarter is a slightly fictionalized account of their 2006 ACC title team and its emotional leader, LB Jon Abbate, and they again reached the conference championship in 2021. In the latter season, Wake's current HC Dave Clawson became the first coach ever with 10-win seasons at four different D-I schools.^note

The school's very name is an Artifact Title. It was originally on a plantation in an area north of Raleigh known as the "Forest of Wake" (as in Wake County). A town eventually grew up around the school, taking the name of Wake Forest. The university moved to Winston-Salem in 1956 after the Reynolds family of tobacco fame made massive donations, including more than enough land for a new campus.^note The unique "Demon Deacons" nickname traces back to its origins as a Baptist school for training clergy; a reporter stated that their team "played like Demons" after a 1923 game, and the name stuck. The Deacons attempt to keep up rivalries with the other North Carolina ACC programs on "Tobacco Road", but none of them are especially competitive. In fitting with their school's size and poor football reputation, Allegacy FCU Stadium is the smallest Power Five stadium (not counting Northwestern's temporary venue; see the Big Ten folder).^note