The Duke football program is entering a 2025 season with potential ACC Championship expectations coming off a 9-4 season in the first under head coach Manny Diaz, just the fourth season of nine or more wins in program history. Taking the ACC crown away from Clemson will be as tall a task as any, but with one of the lighter schedules in the conference as a whole, a College Football Playoff appearance for the Blue Devils is in the cards.
With a few marquee matchups on the slate that will decide the fate of the season on their own, let's project Duke's ceiling and floor for the 2025 campaign.
Ceiling: 11-1, College Football Playoff appearance
Now, this is a true ceiling for the Blue Devils in 2025. Even though technically any team can go 11-1, it's a real possibility for the Blue Devils if a couple of major games go their way. The ceiling of the season might come down to Duke's Week Two matchup at home against Illinois, the No. 12 team in the preseason AP Poll. If the Blue Devils can squeeze out a massive home victory over one of the top teams in the Big 10, especially so early on in the season, it will likely boost the program into the AP Top 25. With the vast majority of Duke's remaining games being contests the Blue Devils probably should win, an 11-win season comes into play with a victory over the Fighting Illini. Duke will also have to take down Georgia Tech at home, but outside of the Yellow Jackets, Duke will only face one other squad in the top seven of the ACC Preseason Media Poll in Clemson. Assuming Duke loses on the road to the Tigers and doesn't cough up any losses against squads it should beat, Duke can get to 11-1 and put a CFP appearance on the resume for the first time in the history of the program.
Floor: 7-5, Duke can't protect home turf, struggles on the road
The Blue Devils still start the season strong here with a 3-1 record after taking down Elon and NC State at home, along with Tulane on the road. However, Duke gets steamrolled at home by Illinois, and from there on out, things continue to go south. Duke suffers two grueling losses on the road to Syracuse and North Carolina, while still losing to Clemson in Death Valley. Duke also falls to Georgia Tech at Wallace Wade here, cementing the program as a middle-of-the-pack group in the ACC. Even if Duke loses its top two home games to Illinois and Georgia Tech, it feels like a lot would have to go wrong for the Blue Devils to only be able to muster up seven wins.
Duke's current season win total over/under according to FanDuel is 6.5. Time will tell if that line is brutally disrespectful, or if the sportsbooks know something we don't.