Head Coach: Manny Diaz is entering his 2nd season as the coach of the Blue Devils with a 9-4 record. It was an extremely impressive debut for Diaz. It felt like his tremendous first season went very under the radar which is ironically similar to how it started for Mike Elko when he was here. Now, the question is what is his ceiling at Duke?
Program Outlook: Duke is and always will be a basketball school. Historically this made success in football extremely difficult to attain. At one point Duke went over 50 years without a bowl win and 18 years without a bowl game. Both streaks were broken in the 2010s. Now Duke has won 8+ games in 3 straight seasons so this is already one of their best runs in program history. It’s become apparent that the Blue Devils are investing more heavily into football, including into the roster. Something might be brewing in Durham.
How does the 2025 Roster look?: Duke ranks 44th in the country returning 60% of their production per Punt and Rally’s returning production rankings. Duke didn’t hit the portal much, but they did make a key pickup there in former Tulane QB Darian Mensah who they are paying a large sum of money for. They are also bringing in the best freshman class in program history. Duke’s defense is a huge strength they have a front 7 that generated 43 sacks last season, their secondary led by Chandler Rivers plus Terry Moore is very capable of holding up along with forcing turnovers.
Screenshot from FBSchedules.com
2025 Schedule Thoughts: Here’s where things get tough. It starts with the non-conference schedule where Duke trades in Northwestern for Illinois, Mid Tenn State for Tulane and instead of hosting UConn they face the Huskies on the road in November. That’s an extremely enhanced level of difficulty, the only thing that remains the same is Duke once again faces local FCS foe Elon who the Blue Devils beat 26-3 last year. Making matters even more challenging is that the conference schedule is tougher Clemson, Syracuse and Georgia Tech are among the best teams in the conference. Duke’s in-state rivals NC State and North Carolina might be improved this season too.
Final Thoughts: This program is in a good spot right now, and I believe they’re in position to keep that momentum, but even if they’re a better team I’m not sure if they can win 9 games again. First, the schedule is much tougher in 2025. Second, it’s going to be very difficult to repeat Duke’s 6-1 record in one-score games from a year ago along with their +8 turnover margin. I’d imagine Manny Diaz’s coaching will prevent one-score games and turnover margin from completely flipping but a stroke of bad luck is a recipe for disaster for the Blue Devils.
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