Duke football projected to miss postseason by national publication

There is plenty of excitement surrounding the Duke football program. New head coach Manny Diaz has taken the reins and is putting together a top-25 recruiting class for 2025.

However, some pundits think that 2024 could be a struggle for the Blue Devils. In fact, one national writer has Duke missing out on the postseason altogether.

Recently, Bill Bender of The Sporting News projected every bowl matchup for the upcoming season. Despite there being 35 bowl games and a 12-team playoff, he doesn't have the Blue Devils in any of his projections.

Naturally, such an outcome would be quite a disappointment for a Duke program that has been building toward being a consistent winner in recent seasons. However, that progress was achieved under now Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko, not Diaz.

In each of Elko's two seasons as head coach in Durham, Duke made it to and won a bowl game. In 2022, it was a 30-13 victory over UCF in the Military Bowl that capped the season. Last year, despite being without Elko for the bowl game, Duke still prevailed 17-10 over Troy in the Birmingham Bowl.

Making it to back-to-back bowl games was no small feat for a Duke program that had not been bowl eligible in the three years before Elko's arrival. Now, the goal for 2024 is to continue that upward trend under Diaz's guidance.

It won't be easy, though. That's because Duke faces a rather difficult schedule this year.

Home conference games with North Carolina, SMU, Florida State, and Virginia Tech are all going to be challenging to say the least. What's more, road games at Northwestern, Georgia Tech, Miami, NC State, and Wake Forest will be tricky.

Of the teams listed above. eight played in the postseason last fall. Therefore, duke has its work cut out if the Blue Devils want to make it past game No. 12 themselves.

Also making some question Duke's 2024 postseason chances is the quarterback position in Durham. With 2023's productive starter, Riley Leonard, having transferred, Diaz will likely have to lean on Texas transfer Maalik Murphy to lead his offense.

While the dual-threat QB has plenty of physical gifts, he is still green as a QB. At Texas, he appeared in only seven games attempting a grand total of 71 passes. What's more, he completed only 56.3% of those attempts, all of which came last season.

It will be asking quite a bit of Murphy to take over and win right away. He's just a redshirt sophomore and this will be his first time as QB1 at the college level.

The first season of a head coach's tenure at a school is often referred to as a "transition year". Thus, many lower expectations when a new boss assumes control.

That appears to be what Binder sees in store for Duke in 2024. Hopefully, his predictions are off the mark though and Diaz can find a way to get his team to at least six wins this fall.