Cignetti, Wake Forest, Western Carolina, D2 Squads Among DG’s ACC/NC “Fun Facts & Shout-Outs” (Week 7) – Ncsportsnetwork.com

COLLEGE FOOTBALL WEEK SEVEN:

Wake Forest, Western Carolina, D2 Programs
Among DG’s ACC/NC “Fun Facts & Shout-Outs”

By David Glenn
North Carolina Sports Network
(final up to date Oct. 13, 2025)

While the main focus of our “This Week In College Football” present is forward-looking as typically as doable, we all the time take a look again on the earlier weekend in school soccer, too, and generally we’ll provide some fast mentions to these making impactful headlines on the gridiron, particularly within the Atlantic Coast Conference and/or throughout North Carolina.

With that in thoughts, beneath are our Week Seven “Fun Facts and Shout-Outs,” delivered to you by our good mates at Jimmy’s bar and King Neptune restaurant in Wrightsville Beach.

Jimmy’s has a full bar, nightly drink specials and dwell music one year a yr(!). (It’s a terrific place to observe a sport, too.) Right subsequent door, King Neptune has turn out to be top-of-the-line eating places in your entire larger Wilmington space.

Week Seven “Fun Fact #1”

Let’s begin, as traditional, with a Fun Fact — this time targeted on the ACC as a complete — earlier than we return to the good state of North Carolina for almost all of this week’s shout-outs.

Fun Fact: Even although it’s solely roughly the midpoint of the 2025 common season, we already know that this yr’s ACC soccer champion nearly actually might be both a college that has by no means received that title or a college that hasn’t received it in a very long time.

Since 2010, solely three applications have received the ACC soccer championship sport — Clemson 9 occasions, Florida State 4 occasions and Pitt one time.

In case you might have forgotten, the Panthers received beneath Pat Narduzzi again in 2021, throughout an 11-3 season, when Kenny Pickett was their quarterback, Jordan Addison was their star vast receiver, Calijah Kancey was their elite defensive deal with and SirVocea Dennis was their stud linebacker. All 4 of these guys, amongst others from that excellent Pitt crew, are nonetheless taking part in within the National Football League.

Right now, the highest ACC contenders are led by #2 Miami (5-0, 1-0 ACC). The Hurricanes, regardless of being ACC members for greater than 20 years at this level, have by no means received the league’s soccer title, however they’re in glorious place proper now beneath fourth-year head coach Mario Cristobal.

Three different high ACC contenders haven’t received the convention championship in a few years.

Georgia Tech (6-0, 3-0) final captured the league crown in 2009, though that championship was later vacated by the NCAA; previous to that, the Jackets’ most up-to-date title occurred in 1998. Duke (4-2, 3-0) hasn’t received the ACC title since legendary coach Steve Spurrier helped them tie with Virginia within the regular-season standings manner again in 1989. Virginia (5-1, 3-0) hasn’t received it since legendary coach George Welsh led the Wahoos to a first-place tie with Florida State in 1995.

SMU (4-2, 2-0) and Louisville (4-1, 1-1) are also nonetheless a lot alive on this yr’s race for the ACC championship. Neither the Mustangs nor the Cardinals have ever received the ACC soccer title, both.

OK, on to this week’s shout-outs….

#1—Shout-out to Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti, who beforehand served as Chuck Amato’s quarterbacks coach and recruiting coordinator at NC State and later as the top coach — additionally right here in our yard — at Elon, which turned a Top 25 FCS program on his watch in 2017 and 2018.

Cignetti then went from Elon to James Madison, the place his common document over 5 seasons was 10-2. He led the Dukes to a few straight journeys to the FCS playoff semifinals, together with one nationwide title sport, then by way of a profitable transition to the FBS ranks as a member of the Sun Belt Conference, earlier than being employed to take over at Indiana.

At this level, what Cignetti has finished over this final season and a half with the Hoosiers has to rank among the many most superb tales in current school soccer historical past. That thought is especially pertinent this week as a result of simply final Saturday his crew went to #3 Oregon and beat the beforehand undefeated Ducks on their residence discipline, 30-20. Two weeks earlier, the Hoosiers defeated #9 Illinois by a 63-10 margin. Those have been each completely huge, eye-opening outcomes.

Indiana is now 6-0 and #3 within the nationwide polls, behind solely Ohio State and Miami.

If you discover, many of the groups within the nationwide high 10 proper now — the Buckeyes, the Hurricanes, Alabama, Georgia, LSU, and so forth. — are multi-time nationwide championship applications and long-time school soccer superpowers or they’re extremely well-funded applications, resembling these at Texas A&M (which now has an general athletics finances of about $250 million per yr and a football-specific finances of about $100 million per yr) or Oregon (the place the Nike cash of Phil Knight additionally has constructed an incredible monetary basis).

Indiana, whereas a five-time nationwide champion in males’s basketball, hardly ever has been nationally related in soccer over the previous half-century or extra. In reality, the Hoosiers had completed within the nationwide Top 25 solely as soon as in 35 seasons when Cignetti took the job, they usually hardly ever have had even a profitable document of their Big Ten video games.

Cignetti clearly had an incredible, quick impression in Bloomington final yr, when the Hoosiers went 11-2, made the College Football Playoff and completed #10 within the nationwide polls. That marked solely the third time, in additional than 100 years of faculty soccer, that IU had a top-10 end on the gridiron.

Now Cignetti has them in place to do all of that for the second yr in a row, which might be only a mind-boggling accomplishment, particularly at that college.

#2—Shout-out — again right here in “ACC country” — to first-year Wake Forest head coach Jake Dickert and his defensive coordinator Scottie Hazelton, because the Demon Deacons are off to a 4-2 begin largely due to their persistently sturdy performances on the defensive aspect of the ball.

Among the 136 FBS applications, Wake Forest ranks solely 99th on offense and one hundred and first on particular groups in ESPN’s effectivity rankings, however the Demon Deacons are twenty second on protection.

Wake completely shut down its three lesser opponents earlier this season, holding Kennesaw State to 9 factors, Western Carolina to 10 and Oregon State to 14. In the Deacs’ three ACC video games to this point, their protection allowed solely 27 factors to NC State, 23 in regulation to Georgia Tech and 23 in a win at Virginia Tech.

Wake at the moment ranks third within the ACC in scoring protection, at simply 20 factors per sport, behind solely Miami and Clemson, two groups which might be overflowing with NFL-caliber expertise on that aspect of the ball.

The defensive leaders for Wake have included sixth-year senior security Nick Andersen, redshirt sophomore nickel again Davaughn Patterson, fifth-year senior linebacker Dylan Hazen (now a three-year starter for the Deacs) and fifth-year senior edge rusher Langston Hardy (a UConn switch).

Dickert’s teaching background is on the defensive aspect. He was the defensive coordinator on some very profitable Wyoming groups earlier than being employed because the DC at Washington State, the place he later acquired promoted to move coach.

Dickert and Hazelton truly labored collectively on the defensive workers at Wyoming again in 2017, when the Cowboys had a surprising 38 takeaways, which is without doubt one of the highest numbers for any FBS crew over the previous couple of many years.

This yr’s Wake crew has solely six takeaways to this point, nevertheless it has finished an excellent job of limiting opponents’ explosion performs and often forcing foes into discipline aim makes an attempt.

#3—Shout-out — on the FCS stage — to fifth-year Western Carolina head coach Kerwin Bell and the Catamounts’ sensational, record-setting quarterback, Taron Dickens.

We talked about Dickens (as a rising star in Cullowhee) right here on the North Carolina Sports Network again in August, then once more final week, after he had set the all-time NCAA document — at any stage— by finishing his first 46 passes in a row throughout the Catamounts’ comeback victory at Wofford.

Without Dickens, this yr’s Western Carolina crew misplaced its first three video games. With Dickens, a 5-foot-11, 180-pound redshirt sophomore from Miami, the Catamounts now have received 4 in a row, together with final Saturday’s 52-7 pasting of Furman. Against the Paladins, Dickens related on 17 of 24 passes for 220 yards, 4 touchdowns and no interceptions whereas additionally working seven occasions for 48 yards.

Furman, by the best way, is a program that has received a document 15 Southern Conference soccer championships, way over another faculty. Western Carolina, in the meantime, has by no means received the SoCon soccer title, regardless of being a member of that league since 1976.

The solely undefeated groups in SoCon play this season are Western Carolina and Mercer, and they’ll face one another in Cullowhee on Nov. 8.

There’s nonetheless a protracted method to go, clearly, and Western nonetheless has 4 different convention video games left to play, too, however after many years when the Catamounts have been solely hardly ever within the dialog for Southern Conference honors or a visit to the FCS playoffs, it’s enjoyable to see them — due to Bell and now Dickens — firmly within the combine for each at this level, whereas additionally placing up the kinds of offensive numbers that make the lengthy journey to Whitmire Stadium in Cullowhee worthwhile.

Last, however actually not least …

#4—Shout-outs — on the Division Two stage — to the coaches and gamers at Fayetteville State, Johnson C Smith and UNC Pembroke, who’ve all put themselves in place to problem for a convention championship and a visit to the D2 playoffs.

Under Tenth-year head coach Richard Hayes Jr., who led his program to the CIAA title in 2022, Fayetteville State is off to an ideal 4-0 begin this season in convention play, with dominating victories by scores of 51-8, 34-14, 38-10 and 38-14. The Broncos are off this week, however they may have large residence video games in November towards in-state league rivals Johnson C Smith and Winston-Salem State.

Speaking of JC Smith, beneath fourth-year head coach Maurice Flowers, the Golden Bulls are 5-1 and again within the nationwide Top 25, one yr after posting top-of-the-line seasons in program historical past. The CIAA championship sport might be in Durham this yr, at Durham County Stadium, and the Bulls be a part of Virginia Union and Fayetteville State (who’re at the moment tied for first place) because the main contenders for these two title-game slots.

Finally, UNC Pembroke, led by third-year head coach Mark Hall, is also within the D2 nationwide rankings, at #20, after a unbelievable 6-1 begin. This Saturday, the Braves go to the one different crew that’s undefeated within the Conference Carolinas, the North Greenville Crusaders. The winner of that one may have the within observe for the league championship and the automated D2 playoff bid that comes with it.