Duke Football 2024

Can I take "none of the above"?
Of course! I was just answering the question posed. Indifference is always an option. I at least find that rooting against the SEC day-in, day-out makes lots of matchups more interesting, never mind when Mike Who and the weird cult in College Station are involved.
 
I hate to say it, sorta, but the ESPN web site has a rather interesting read on the Elko/Leonard matchup tonight that prominently features several current and former Duke players.
Yep, good read. But be prepared to relive the last 9 months of sadness and grief. Watching the Notre Dame/Tx A&M game yesterday brought it all back....what a tragedy. Even my friends at the top of the heap of SEC country admit that the system is seriously flawed and needs to be fixed.
 
I'm bringing this quote over to where it's more appropriate instead of stuck in the Elon thread.

Wow—tough crowd!

I'm struggling to see how folks are getting 4-8 from our schedule. Miami and GaTech both had outstanding openers, and FSU surely outclasses our talent level, but I didn't see anyone else on the schedule lighting any fields on fire. VaTech looked pedestrian in losing to Vandy. SMU struggled against Nevada in their opener. Northwestern had trouble putting points on the board against Miami... no, not that Miami—the one in Ohio. UConn was taken behind the woodshed by Maryland. MTSU won a barn-burner against Tennessee Tech. The Tar Heels were gifted a win by Minnesota's outstanding kicking game. Heck, even NCState needed a late game surge to beat Western Carolina. Granted, Wake blew the doors off their opponent... the vaunted NCA&T Aggies.

We win our opener by 23 with the [admittedly overmatched] Elon only avoiding the shutout by hitting a late-game FG, our D holding them to 140 yards of total offense in the process, wreaking havoc with 16 TFLs (that's twice the average of a Diaz defensive unit, by the way) and 8 sacks (and somehow no turnovers, mind you), and folks are already hitting the sub-500 panic button? While it's possible we may go 4-8 this season, I'm just not seeing that as a logical conclusion thus far based on our first game performance vis a vis the first game performances of other teams on our schedule (again, who didn't exactly run circles around similarly mediocre opposition right out of the gates)... Let's just take a deep breath and see how this thing plays out—we might be pleasantly surprised...
I'm 100% on board with this. Looking at our schedule, it's not hard to see us 4-0 going into the Cheaters game. While that statement might blow up after this week's game, it's also possible that in less than a month we only need two more wins to go bowling.

I see NU, UCONN and MTSU all as wins. Even if we stumble on the edge of a Chicago lake, 3-1 is likely. (I don't see us stumbling.)
VT, NCSU, Wake, I like our chances. I also like our chances against the cheaters in Our House. I think we take at least two of those games.
 
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I'm bringing this quote over to where it's more appropriate instead of stuck in the Elon thread.


I'm 100% on board with this. Looking at our schedule, it's not hard to see us 4-0 going into the Cheaters game. While that statement might blow up after this week's game, it's also possible that in less than a month we only need two more wins to go bowling.

I see NU, UCONN and MTSU all as wins. Even if we stumble on the edge of a Chicago lake, 3-1 is likely. (I don't see us stumbling.)
For P5 teams, preseason Sagarin had NW, UNC, Wake, and SMU as 0-3 point losses, GT and VT as 4-7 point losses, and the rest losses by double digits. You could swap GT and NCSU based on what we've seen so far. (Duke plays NCSU close and finds creative ways to let GT cover the spread in Atlanta.) NW was -3 based on Vegas, but I'm not sure that monstrosity on the Lake is a -3 home field. It could be -1 or -10 with the limited data we have.

Keep in mind any bowl at 6-6 is a little bit of a mystery without 12-14 ACC bowl slots.
 
Keep in mind any bowl at 6-6 is a little bit of a mystery without 12-14 ACC bowl slots.
Curiously, because of contracts or something, the PAC2 has been able to keep the P12 bowl tie-ins together for 2024 and 2025. So, barring a former P12 team winning the championship of their new conference, they are still jockeying for the P12 bowl slots. SMU, on the other hand, could use up an ACC slot.
 
For P5 teams, preseason Sagarin had NW, UNC, Wake, and SMU as 0-3 point losses, GT and VT as 4-7 point losses, and the rest losses by double digits. You could swap GT and NCSU based on what we've seen so far. (Duke plays NCSU close and finds creative ways to let GT cover the spread in Atlanta.) NW was -3 based on Vegas, but I'm not sure that monstrosity on the Lake is a -3 home field. It could be -1 or -10 with the limited data we have.

Keep in mind any bowl at 6-6 is a little bit of a mystery without 12-14 ACC bowl slots.
Preseason Sagarin has almost no validity. Gotta wait several weeks for it to mean something
 
Not good news -- Disney including ESPN and ACCN are in another squabble with DirecTV and no programs available on those channels for DirecTV subscribers for now.
 
I just applied to AT&T for a credit for being locked out of the ESPN lineup ... and they credited me $10. Now to figure out where to spend it.
 
For P5 teams, preseason Sagarin had NW, UNC, Wake, and SMU as 0-3 point losses, GT and VT as 4-7 point losses, and the rest losses by double digits. You could swap GT and NCSU based on what we've seen so far. (Duke plays NCSU close and finds creative ways to let GT cover the spread in Atlanta.) NW was -3 based on Vegas, but I'm not sure that monstrosity on the Lake is a -3 home field. It could be -1 or -10 with the limited data we have.

Keep in mind any bowl at 6-6 is a little bit of a mystery without 12-14 ACC bowl slots.

Call me a tad skeptical about any predictions from a statistical model that has absolutely no 2024 data to parse.
 
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