Things to watch in the Atlantic Coast Conference in Week 5:
GAME OF THE WEEK
No. 11 Notre Dame at No. 17 Duke. The Fighting Irish (4-1) haven't lost a regular-season game to an Atlantic Coast Conference team in six years, winning 29 in a row. Now they're coming off a narrow loss to Ohio State as they visit the Blue Devils, who have already taken down preseason ACC favorite Clemson and can reach 5-0 for the first time since 1994 behind quarterback Riley Leonard.
There are multiple storylines here of note. There's Duke's rise in Year 2 under Mike Elko, which has lured ESPN's “College GameDay” for its first-ever appearance in Durham for a football game after multiple stops there for basketball. There's also former Wake Forest quarterback Sam Hartman returning to the state of North Carolina to face the Blue Devils for a third straight year after splitting the last two meetings.
BEST MATCHUP
Clemson at Syracuse. The Tigers rarely lost to any league teams during its recent run as the ACC's dominant power. One came in 2017 at Syracuse in the second season of Orange coach Dino Babers.
Six years later, they're meeting again at Syracuse (4-0), which is playing its first league game and boasts a defense ranked among the Bowl Subdivision leaders by allowing 10.8 points (seventh) and 274.2 yards per game (15th).
The Tigers (2-2, 0-2 ACC) are coming off a loss to Florida State and were blown out by Duke in their only previous road game.
LONG SHOT
Pittsburgh is a 2 1/2-point favorite at Virginia Tech according to FanDuel Sportsbook. The Hokies (1-3) haven't won since Week 1, have yet to reach 20 points in a game and haven't had starting quarterback Grant Wells the past two games due to injury.
But the Hokies are at home while the Panthers (1-3, 0-1) are coming off a loss to North Carolina, which included losing quarterback Phil Jurkovec to injury.
INSIDE THE NUMBERS
The ACC has had a strong start to the season, namely with its wins against nonconference opponents from the Power Five leagues. Another highlight: the ACC has a national-best six unbeaten teams entering Week 5.
The list includes No. 5 FSU, No. 15 North Carolina, No. 18 Miami and Louisville all sitting at 4-0 to join Duke and Syracuse. That represents 22% of the nation's 27 unbeaten teams — which includes James Madison as it reclassifies to FBS — followed by the Pac-12 with five and the Big Ten with four.
IMPACT PLAYER
Louisville running back Jawhar Jordan leads the ACC and ranks eighth nationally in rushing yards per game (119.5) entering Friday night's trip to North Carolina State. And he's done it in big-play fashion: four of his six rushing touchdowns have come from at least 25 yards out, including a 72- and 74-yarder.
He also has a 75-yard score on a catch.
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AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/college-football and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll
