Wednesday, December 28 2:00, ESPN
ATS Line Duke -3
Pick Duke
First and foremost, Duke is actually good.
Get past the school name. If Miami went 8-4 with one of the four losses by a touchdown-and-2 and the other three by three points each, it would be the hottest thing around going into the 2023 season.
Duke beat Miami 45-21 in Miami Gardens, by the way.
Mike Elko’s team doesn’t beat itself with penalties or turnovers, it’s steady, and it’s just okay enough defensively to get by in a game like this.
All of that, and Duke gets everyone who matters back for this bowl. UCF doesn’t.
Of course UCF has the coaching and the talent to rise up in a game like this – it’s what the program lives for. But the quarterback situation is going to be interesting depending on whether or not John Rhys Plumlee really is okay to go, and there are enough lost starters to the transfer portal – top target Ryan O’Keefe hurts – to matter.
It’s all a long-winded way of saying in a bowl year without a whole lot of things to go on based on what happened in the regular season, Duke is as close as it might get to being normal. That also goes for …
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