The Duke Blue Devils moved to 6-1 for the season and 2-1 in conference play after defeating the Florida State Seminoles on Friday night, and it seems like head coach Manny Diaz and his team are being taken more seriously as major players in the ACC.
USA TODAY Sports’ Craig Meyer updated his conference power rankings on Monday, and he bumped the Blue Devils up four spots to sixth.
The Miami Hurricanes and Clemson Tigers remain in their own zip code atop the ACC, and the Pittsburgh Panthers, SMU Mustangs, and Syracuse Orange all remained in place at third, fourth, and fifth.
The Mustangs came to Durham for a conference battle on Saturday night, and while the Blue Devils enter the week as heavy underdogs, a win would launch Duke hype into a different stratosphere. It’ll be a game of strength-on-strength with Duke bringing the nation’s fourth-best defense (4.29 yards per play) against an SMU offense averaging 40.7 points per game.
The North Carolina Tar Heels, still winless against conference opponents amid a four-game losing skid, finished second-to-last on Meyer’s list.