The Duke football program is coming off just its fourth season of nine or more wins in program history in Manny Diaz's first season as head coach. However, despite the recent success and the fact that the Blue Devils probably got better this offseason, the betting markets still project Duke to regress a fair amount, and betting the team's over on their season win total might be the easiest slip of the entire college football season.
Duke's over/under for wins per FanDuel is 6.5, signaling the program should regress after its success last season. Taking the over is currently at -194 odds compared to taking the under at +156, but it still seems like a no-brainer to take the Blue Devils' over.
Even if Duke performs slightly under the expectations given the revamped roster, the Blue Devils have one of the easiest schedules in the entire ACC, and the program should be favored in most of its contests.
Granted, the Blue Devils have been credited with one of the toughest non-conference slates in the nation this year. Duke will face Illinois at home in Week Two, ranked No. 12 in the Preseason AP Poll, and also face Tulane and UConn, which both made bowl games in 2024.
Although, Duke's conference schedule is one of the lightest of any team in the ACC. Manny Diaz and his guys will only face two of the top seven teams in the ACC Preseason Media Poll. The Blue Devils will go up against Clemson (No. 4 in Preseason AP Poll) on the road and Georgia Tech at Wallace Wade Stadium. Additionally, two of Duke's four road ACC matchups are against teams outside of the top ten in the preseason poll.
So, Duke should be favored in, at the very least, six of its games throughout the 2025 season: vs. Elon, vs. NC State, at Syracuse, at California, vs. Virginia, and vs. Wake Forest.
That's being generous, as well. Not included in the games mentioned above were those at Tulane, at North Carolina, and at UConn, which are another three contests the Blue Devils should win.
Nine wins is pretty difficult to do, but considering how the Blue Devils got better and are coming off a season like that in the first with their new head coach, taking the over on 6.5 total wins seems like a lock.