The Duke Blue Devils have won their first five games of the 2024 college football season, but the voters of the Associated Press Top 25 College Football Poll remain uncertain.
First-year head coach Manny Diaz and his team didn’t earn a single vote in the Week 6 rankings, making them one of two unbeaten programs left off every ballot. According to a Wednesday story from Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger, the new Duke leader didn’t seem particularly rattled by the lack of validation.
It doesn’t matter,” Diaz said. “Nobody remembers who was ranked after Week 5 a year ago.”
Fair questions remain about the Blue Devils’ strength of schedule with wins over Elon, Connecticut, and Middle Tennessee. However, Duke also beat Northwestern on the road in overtime and overcame a 20-point North Carolina Tar Heels lead last Saturday.
It’s the school’s first 5-0 start since 1994, and according to ESPN FPI, Duke ranks 18th in strength of record, which calculates the odds that an average team would have the same amount of wins with the Blue Devils’ schedule.
Diaz leads his team to Atlanta against Georgia Tech this week, and a victory there would make the Blue Devils impossible to ignore. While the Yellow Jackets have lost two of their last three games, they were ranked after two games thanks to an early upset of the Florida State Seminoles and gave a ranked Louisville team a good fight.