CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – The Miami Hurricanes haven’t left much doubt about who the best team in the ACC is through four games. A year after reaching the National Championship game, this season’s squad is routing opponents by an average of 42.8 points per game.

But as clear as it is who’s the conference’s top team, that’s how wide open the race for the No. 2 spot appears to be. 

A week after Louisville made a strong case by beating SMU, the Cardinals lost at home to Wake Forest, unofficially declaring that chaos still reigns in the ACC. 

Clemson, for all its issues, is 2-0 in league play. Duke, Pittsburgh, Virginia and Virginia Tech are all 1-0 in the conference. And that list doesn’t include Wake Forest, Louisville and SMU, which are all still very much alive in the race for the second spot in Charlotte for the ACC championship game.

Here’s a special look at who’s up and who’s down in the race to finish second behind Miami.

Who’s up?

Duke: The Blue Devils have a hard-earned Big Ten road win at Illinois on its resume to go with blowouts of Tulane, Stanford and William & Mary. The Blue Devils are running the football and playing dominant defense. That’s certainly a formula to be in contention. Duke leads the ACC averaging 243.5 rushing yards per game and ranks third in the conference in scoring defense, yielding just 11 points per game.

Wake Forest: The Demon Deacons will be favored in at least their next three games before a Halloween showdown with UVA in Winston-Salem. The schedule is harder in the second half of the year. After the Virginia game, Wake still has to go to SMU and it ends the year at home against Duke, a game that could end up being contested with a spot in the title game on the line.

Virginia Tech and/or Pittsburgh: Both deserve some love for 4-0 starts that have vaulted the Hokies and Panthers into very real contention. Of course, one of them will have an ACC loss after the showdown Friday night in Blacksburg. This wasn’t the “circle-on-the-calendar” date that SMU-Louisville was in the preseason. But now, as we move to October, it’s massive. 

Who’s down?

Louisville: Just when the masses wanted to anoint the Cardinals and transfer quarterback Lincoln Kienholz as the ACC’s clear second-best team, they lost at home to Wake, falling behind 24-14 in the second quarter. Louisville did face a challenging opening third of the season and the schedule lets up considerably now. The Cardinals are very much a player in this conference race but they’re a hard team to trust.

SMU: Before losing to Louisville, the Mustangs already showed some vulnerability when they barely escaped Tallahassee in Week 1, edging the Seminoles on a field goal with 21 seconds to play. SMU and Kevin Jennings are still contenders, but they have not distinguished themselves in league play. 

Virginia: The Cavaliers’ loss to West Virginia was a non-conference game, so it has no bearing on the ACC race. But … it certainly showed that the UVA hype train needed to slow down a bit. Virginia faces a pivotal road test at Florida State on Saturday, where it hasn’t played since 2014. If it feels like the Seminoles have already been reduced to the spoiler role, it’s because they have. And they can start the spoiling Saturday against UVA.