ESPN writers Kyle Bonagura and Mark Schlabach released their 2024 bowl projections for the college football season on Wednesday, but only one of them had the Blue Devils in the postseason.
Bonagura had Duke in the Wasabi Fenway Bowl playing against Memphis while Schlabach didn’t have the Blue Devils anywhere on his lineup.
Schlabach’s pessimism follows a national pattern of analysts and writers seeing the glass in Durham as half-empty. A CBS Sports panel earlier this week had multiple writers rank the Blue Devils as the worst team in the ACC, and the website’s bowl projections didn’t include Duke either.
After 17 wins over the last two seasons, stock seems to be low in the first year of the Manny Diaz era. If you ask ESPN FPI, the Blue Devils are expected to win 6.1 games, so the team really is sitting right on the edge of bowl eligibility.
Diaz and new starting quarterback Maalik Murphy start their journey to six wins against Elon on August 30.