The Duke football team got the season off to a decent start last Friday with a 26-3 victory over Elon, but ESPN FPI wasn’t very impressed by [autotag]Manny Diaz[/autotag] and [autotag]Maalik Murphy[/autotag]’s first game.
As of Monday morning, with all but one Week 1 game complete, the Blue Devils dropped 11 spots down to 63rd in the FPI rankings. After beginning the season with a projected win total of 6.0, barely enough to qualify for a bowl game, ESPN Analytics dropped that number to 5.9.
Part of that pessimism likely stems from Duke’s slow start against the Phoenix. Elon missed a field goal that would have tied the game late in the second quarter, and the Blue Devils didn’t score a touchdown until the final minute of the first half.
Another aspect of the slight slip stems from Georgia Tech and Wake Forest, two of the more winnable games on the schedule, overperforming out of the gate. The Yellow Jackets upset a top-10 Florida State team while the Demon Deacons beat North Carolina A&T 45-13, both jumping more than 10 spots in the rankings.
Duke hopes to start 2-0 with another Friday game this week, this time against Northwestern.