For some off-season football reading, we want to look at the ACC’s 15 best out-of-conference wins of the 2020s. For years, we’ve said winning OOC games would benefit the health of the ACC. With the obvious bias built in and the narratives being set around media, actual winning doesn’t matter like it should. It’s still fun to look back on some nice wins. Maybe we’ll get back to looking at results one day. We can only hope.
For the previous decade, we ranked the ACC’s 50 biggest OOC wins of the 2010s.
There were some great wins there. That’s for sure.
We look at games 11-15 here, and soon we’ll get into the top 10.
Games 1-5 | Games 6-10 | Games 16-20 | Games 21-25
11. California 21 Auburn 14 – September 7, 2024
Sure Auburn finished the year 5-7 (2-6), and California went 6-7 (2-6), but when California went into Jordan Hare and knocked off the Tigers 21-14 it sent shockwaves around the country. The Calgorithm started to take college football social media by storm, and Cal endeared themselves to ACC fans everywhere. Their defense forced 5 turnovers and held Auburn to 286 total yards. Anytime an ACC team walks into an SEC stadium and leaves with a win, that is a big deal. The ACC needs more of those kinds of wins.
12. NC State 15 #21 Liberty 14 – November 21, 2020
This was the one win by an ACC team that was a legitimately strong OOC win in 2020, and it was pulled off by NC State. Liberty finished the year 10-1 with a final ranking in the top 25 of both major polls and had wins over Syracuse, Virginia Tech, and a top 15 Coastal Carolina team. It was a stellar defensive performance by the Wolfpack while playing their backup QB Baily Hockman. This was a quality win that NC State fans can take pride in.
13. Louisville 24 Cincinnati 7 – December 17, 2022
The ACC desperately needed a respectable bowl season in 2022. While you can debate the value of bowl wins with all the opt-outs these days, winning them can still carry some relative weight, and losing them results in criticism for a conference. Louisville’s 24 – 7 over Cincinnati set the tone for the ACC to have their first winning bowl season since 2018. The win gave Louisville a solid 8-win 2022. The Bearcats were 14 points from being undefeated after a 9-3 regular season where they spent a good chunk of it in the top 25. It was a quality Cincinnati squad that Louisville beat in the Fenway Bowl.
14. Louisville 42 UCF 35 – September 17, 2021
UCF has become quite a quality football program in recent years. They even opened the 2021 season with a win over Boise State. This game on Friday night had one of the highlight finishes of the year for an ACC team. Louisville returned a tipped pass for a TD with 13 seconds left to win this game in thrilling fashion. UCF went on to have a 9-4 season game with a bowl win over Florida. This was definitely a great win for Louisville in an otherwise uneven year.
15. #22 Miami 25 Appalachian St 23 – September 11, 2021
I never understood why after Miami won this game, people were so critical of Miami. That was a pretty solid Appalachian State team that went 10-4 and a division title. Yea, it was only a 2 point win, but the reality was the Canes were not as good as their top 15 ranking so this was a quality win over a good team.
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