The Duke football program is looking to build on a highly successful year one under head coach Manny Diaz, one in which the Blue Devils won nine games in a season for just the third time since joining the ACC in 1953.
Duke added stellar transfer quarterback Darian Mensah, bolstered the wide receiver room with guys like Cooper Barkate and Andrel Anthony, and the program is bringing back some of its biggest contributors from the 2024 season.
With the success in Diaz's first year mixed with the amount of money the program has spent building next season's roster, there's much more added pressure for the Blue Devils to succeed. This means contending for an ACC Championship and even being in contention for a College Football Playoff bid.
However, according to ESPN's first edition of its FPI (Football Power Index) for the 2025 season, Duke is seen as a mid-tier team in the ACC.
The Blue Devils are slotted as the No. 10 team in the ACC according to ESPN FPI, which really seeds them as an average club at best in the conference. That's not what Duke is looking to be in 2025.
Here's how the preseason FPI is determined by ESPN.
"Each team’s FPI rating is composed of a predicted offensive, defensive and special teams component. These ratings represent the number of points each unit is expected to contribute to the team's net scoring margin on a neutral field against an average FBS opponent. In the preseason, these components are made up entirely of data from previous seasons, such as returning starters, past performance, recruiting rankings and coaching tenure."
So based on this formula, the Blue Devils aren't expected to be anything special in the 2025 campaign.
The ceiling of the Blue Devils' 2025 season may be decided solely in week two, when Duke hosts Illinois, a projected top ten team by On3 in their "Way-Too-Early" top 25 rankings. Hosting potentially the best squad in the Big 10 gives Diaz and his group a massive opportunity to pick up a quality win very early in the season. A victory here will surely put the Blue Devils in the rankings and let folks know that the Duke program is a serious contender.
However, a loss could have the opposite effect. If Duke gets trampled by the Fighting Illini at Wallace Wade, it could throw away any legitimate CFP buzz that Duke gets for the remainder of the season.