Duke football looks to snap losing streak against North Carolina
By Hugh Straine
Duke football has yet to drop a game through its 2024 campaign, coming out to a 4-0 start to the season and has a chance to start 5-0 for the first time since 1994. The Tobacco Road rivalry stands in its way, as the North Carolina Tar Heels (3-1) will head to Wallace Wade Stadium to try to spoil the Blue Devil's momentum.
With a win on Saturday, Duke will begin knocking on the door of the AP Top 25 poll. The Blue Devils haven't been a member of the Top 25 since that 1994 season when it was ranked #25 after starting 8-2.
Although Duke is favored to win the game, the Tar Heels have had their way with the Blue Devils on the gridiron over the last several seasons.
Duke hasn't beaten North Carolina since the 2018 season behind former Blue Devil quarterback and current New York Giants starting quarterback Daniel Jones, who passed for 361 yards and three touchdowns while also rushing fifteen times for 186 yards and a touchdown on the ground as well. UNC finished 2-9 that season while Duke finished 8-5. Since then, the Tar Heels have dominated the series.
In 2019, UNC took down Duke in a competitive 20-17 contest. Over the next couple seasons, UNC never gave the Blue Devils a chance. In 2020, the Tar Heels came into Durham and knocked them off 56-24 in what was a fairly unsuccessful season for Duke, as the team finished 2-9. In 2021 it was more of the same, as Duke came into Chapel Hill to get throttled 38-7.
But in 2022 and 2023, Duke was right there, able to sniff a victory. The Blue Devils suffered a 38-35 loss at Wallace Wade in 2022 and then followed that up with a crushing double-overtime defeat in 2023, where the Tar Heels took down the Blue Devils 47-45.
Duke went on to win its final four games of the 2023 season, including a 28-7 victory versus #9 Clemson. It has now emerged victorious in its first four games of the 2024 campaign despite a roster overhaul from coaching to players this offseason.
In his press conference ahead of the matchup, Duke head coach Manny Diaz talked about the excitement in the locker room as the team gets ready to kick off ACC play.
"Obviously, it's an exciting week here for us, not just starting off conference play, but starting it off with an in-state game and in-state rivalry. There was a good mood in the building yesterday, coming off the win at Middle Tennessee. I did think we took a step forward in all three phases, but as always, there's still a lot to work on. Our message to the team was that it's always easy to think about this type of week and talk about all of the distractions and things that really aren't the focus of what actually will matter Saturday at 4pm."
A victory to open conference play can really bring Duke to a level where it begins to garner attention on a national scale, along with the sweet feeling of taking down your arch-rival.