Kickoff times set for four Duke football games in the 2024 season

Though we still have about three months until the Duke football season kicks off, we do have a bit of scheduling news as on Thursday, the Blue Devils announced kickoff times for a third of their 2024 schedule. That's at least a small sign that football season is slowly approaching.

The season will open with a home game against FCS opponent Elon. That contest kicks off at 7:30 p.m. Eastern and will be broadcast on the ACC Network.

Duke has won its last two season openers. That includes last year's dramatic and somewhat surprising 28-7 victory over Clemson in Durham.

Of course, this year's opener will be the debut of head coach Manny Diaz. Interestingly, the last two Duke head coaches, Mike Elko and David Cutcliffe also won their Duke head coaching debuts but prior to that, it had been since 1987 that a permanent head coach at Duke had prevailed in his first game with the Blue Devils.

When Duke travels to Northwestern in week two, the game will kick off at 9 p.m. Eastern. It will be broadcast on FS1.

One factor that could work in Duke's favor is that Northwestern will be playing its 2024 and 2025 home games in a temporary stadium as renovations to their home stadium take place. The facility will hold only around 15,000 fans meaning the atmosphere will be less than intimidating for visiting teams.

On September 14, Duke hosts UCONN at 6 p.m. Eastern on the ACC Network. Last season, the two teams met at UCONN with Duke prevailing 41-7. All-time, Duke trails UCONN 2-1 in head-to-head matchups with the Huskies winning at home in 2004 and at Durham in 2007.

Finally, when Duke hosts Florida State on October 19, the game will kick at 7 p.m. Eastern. It will be shown on ESPN2.

Of course, Duke will be heavy underdogs that night. All time, Duke has never beaten Florida State in 20 tries.

What's more, FSU has won eight times in Durham. Hopefully, 2024 will be the season that sees the Blue Devils end that ugly losing streak.

We will have to wait for the rest of the kick off times to be announced. But at least by getting four of this year's kickoff times, we are reminded that football season is coming. Even though it is still quite a long way off in the distance.