College football is back and with the conclusion of Ohio State-Virginia Tech, Week 1 is all wrapped up.

ACC Roundup will appear weekly on dailyorange.com. When in-conference games begin, a graphic with Atlantic Coast Conference standings will be included. Here’s how the first week of the season went for programs around the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Winners

Elon, an FCS team, served as the punching bag for Wake Forest on opening night as the Demon Deacons won 41-3. Quarterback John Wolford, who ended last season with a three-touchdown game against Duke, didn’t lose his momentum in the offseason, passing for three scores and running for another in the Wake Forest win.

Quarterback Justin Thomas rushed for a touchdown 2:10 into the season and No. 16 Georgia Tech never let up. The Yellow Jackets thumped Alcorn State 69-6 and Thomas, who threw four total passes, didn’t play past the first quarter.

The final score, 37-7, doesn’t fully represent how lopsided Duke’s opening-weekend win over Tulane could have been. The Blue Devils lost two fumbles, kicked three field goals and were stopped on fourth down once. In his first start, Duke quarterback Thomas Sirk accounted for 357 yards and was not intercepted.

Wofford looked woeful as No. 12 Clemson cruised to a 49-10 win. But Clemson’s 1,000-yard receiver Mike Williams left the game strapped to a backboard with a neck injury. Head coach Dabo Swinney didn’t know how long Williams might be out, but quarterback Deshaun Watson reportedly said he didn’t think it’d be that long.

In 1820, the state of Maine became independent from Massachusetts. On Saturday, Boston College pulled away from Maine late, winning 24-3 behind running back Tyler Rouse’s two fourth-quarter scores.

Pittsburgh didn’t have running back James Conner, the reigning ACC player of the year who will miss the season with a right knee injury, or wide receiver Tyler Boyd, who served a one-game suspension, but the team still managed to outlast Youngstown State by a score of 45-37. Pitt running back Qadree Ollison ran for 207 yards and a touchdown.

Miami used a 24-point second quarter to gather momentum and steamroll Bethune-Cookman, 45-0, on Saturday. Hunter Knighton, Miami’s reserve offensive lineman, played for the first time since suffering a life-threatening heatstroke in February 2014, when he spent 12 days in a coma and lost 55 pounds.

Rolling in Raleigh, North Carolina State beat Troy 49-21 behind reserve running back Matt Dayes’ 126 yards and two touchdowns. Shadrach Thornton, normally NC State’s starting running back, is suspended for two games.

After trading the navy-and-gold of Notre Dame for the maroon-and-gold of No. 10 Florida State, quarterback Everett Golson threw for four touchdowns and 302 yards as the Seminoles handily beat Texas State, 59-16.

At the Carrier Dome Friday night, Syracuse squashed Rhode Island 47-0. The Orange lost starting quarterback senior Terrel Hunt to a season-ending torn Achilles. You can read the rest of The Daily Orange’s  Syracuse-Rhode Island coverage here.

Losers

North Carolina kicked off the season with an ESPN-televised game against South Carolina, and lost 17-13. The Gamecocks sealed the deal with a late interception deep in South Carolina’s own territory. North Carolina quarterback Marquise Williams was intercepted three times.

Two defensive players scored touchdowns on offense for UCLA as the Bruins beat Virginia, 34-16, in Pasadena, California. Cavaliers running backs averaged 2.9 yards per carry on 34 rushes, with a game-long run of 13 yards.

Heading into halftime, Louisville trailed No. 6 Auburn 17-0. The Cardinals scored 24 points in the second-half, but it still wasn’t good enough to beat the Tigers, as the Cardinals used both Lamar Jackson and Reggie Bonnafon at quarterback. The two combined for 167 yards, no touchdowns and one interception.

A surprising 17-point run gave Virginia Tech a lead at halftime against unanimous No. 1 Ohio State, but it didn’t hold. The Hokies couldn’t beat the Buckeyes for a second straight year. Senior quarterback Michael Brewer, who threw two touchdowns, left in the third quarter with a shoulder injury and the offense went out of sync. Virginia Tech lost the lead and the game, falling 42-24 to the defending national champions.

Published on September 8, 2015 at 12:58 am

Contact Sam: sjfortie@syr.edu | @Sam4TR