CBS Sports released a roundtable discussion about the 2024 ACC football season on Monday, and the writers seem incredibly pessimistic about the Blue Devils.
Each writer in the piece volunteered an overrated and underrated team in the conference, and David Cobb thinks people are too high on Duke despite the team finishing just 11th in the preseason media poll. The program won 17 games over the past two seasons, its best two-year span in a decade, but replaced its head coach and starting quarterback this offseason.
Cobb highlighted the Blue Devils’ schedule (which includes Florida State, SMU, Miami, and NC State in a four-game span) as a major reason why he felt the team would linger near the bottom of the standings.
“Manny Diaz is a good hire, but there are too many roster questions to expect the Blue Devils to produce a bowl bid against this slate in his first year,” Cobb wrote.
Each of the eight writers in the roundtable also listed their projected finishing order for the conference, and no one had the Blue Devils higher than 10th. Cobb and Tom Fornelli had Duke 17th, literally in last place, and three other writers had the Blue Devils in the bottom four.