ACC Football: Fines for SMU, NC State for field storms, Clemson for Swinney blasting the refs

The ACC is fining SMU and NC State $50,000 each for the field storms that we saw after their football teams’ home victories over ranked opponents on Saturday.

SMU (6-3, 4-1 ACC) rallied to force OT against then-#10 Miami (6-2, 2-2 ACC), then won in OT, 26-20.

Kinda odd for the fans of a program that was in the CFP last year to rush the field after beating a perennial pretender, but whatever.

NC State (5-4, 2-3 ACC) was in control of its 48-36 win over then-#8 Georgia Tech (8-1, 5-1 ACC) from the outset.

State now has wins over two CFP contenders – Georgia Tech, now #16, and UVA (8-1, 5-0 ACC), now #12, the latter in a non-conference game.

UVA got its own fine after fans rushed the field following its double-OT win over then-#8 FSU on Sept. 26.

That one was the first of four straight losses by the ‘Noles (4-4, 1-4 ACC), who finally snapped their winless skid with a 42-7 win over Wake Forest (5-3, 2-3 ACC) on Saturday night in Tallahassee.

All fines collected under the ACC don’t-storm-the -field policy are directed to the Weaver-James-Corrigan-Swofford Postgraduate Scholarship Fund, which benefits ACC student-athletes pursuing graduate education.

Clemson fined because Swinney whined

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The ACC hit Clemson (3-5, 2-4 ACC) with a $10,000 fine to add to that postgrad scholarship fund for the comments Dabo Swinney made blasting the awful call that cost his team the game in its 46-45 loss to Duke (5-3, 4-1 ACC) on Saturday.

If anything, the pass-interference penalty called on Clemson DB Avieon Terrell on a fourth-and-10 from the Clemson 18 with 49 seconds left should have been assessed to Duke wideout Que’Sean Brown.

I mean, this is a truly awful call.

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This play was called a PI on Clemson. pic.twitter.com/hdpFUlPAYL

— The Sporting News (@sportingnews) November 1, 2025

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“I don’t even know what to say about the last call,” Swinney said. “You all saw it. Shouldn’t have come down to that. We had plenty of opportunities to win the game, but that’s one of the worst calls I’ve ever seen in a game ever in my entire coaching career. Ever. I don’t really know what else to say.

“I don’t wanna make that a deal because we should’ve won the game. We had plenty of opportunities to win the game. But you fight your butt off, you scratch and claw to get in a situation like that. Then you have a call like that. Man, that’s just more salt in the wound.”

I mean, he’s not wrong.