Football fans in Durham don’t seem incredibly focused on the College Football Playoff.
It’s hard to blame them. The Duke Blue Devils changed their head coach this offseason, bringing in Manny Diaz from Penn State, and the coaching staff is still deciding between Maalik Murphy and Grayson Loftis at quarterback.
However, the CFP expanded from four teams to 12 for the 2024 season, and that introduces at-large bids for the Power Four conferences. There’s no Florida State situation this year. If Duke wins the ACC this season, they make the bracket, no questions asked.
However, there are more than a half-dozen spots up for grabs between the best non-conference champions in the country. The ACC justifiably feels like an afterthought after the way the Seminoles were handled by the committee last year, but the additional spots make it more likely than not that the conference sends multiple teams to the bracket.
So, take a walk down the path of optimism with me here. How can the Blue Devils possibly establish themselves as the next-best team in the ACC? Just throw away the argument of winning the conference for this exercise because it’s an auto-bid, but Diaz and his team actually control their own destiny if you believe multiple ACC teams can make the CFP.
The Blue Devils play Florida State, Miami, and NC State this season, three of the top four preseason favorites to win the conference. If Duke finds a way to beat all three of those teams, or at least two of them, while winning 10 games, they’ll at least deserve a segment on ESPN ahead of the selection show.
The best-case scenario for Blue Devils fans, however ridiculously optimistic, is an undefeated regular season and a conference championship game loss to Clemson. Honestly, any situation with Clemson winning the ACC works in Duke’s favor since they aren’t on the slate. Head-to-head victories against the other best teams in the conference with a no-contest against the eventual champion is a solid case for the second spot in the power rankings.
However, if the Blue Devils lose to any of the three teams listed above (or SMU) and that team moves on to win the conference, that path also leaves Duke in contention.
Unfortunately, given the strength of the SEC and Big Ten now and Duke’s reputation as a football program, I don’t think the Blue Devils make the top 12 with 10 wins unless they take the conference title. Two regular-season losses likely spell the end of Diaz’s chances for an at-large bid.
An 11-1 regular season might sound like a fantasy given the last thirty years of Duke football and the current unknowns around the program. However, if the Blue Devils win their first six games on the schedule (which is more than possible if they knock off UNC), they’ll host Florida State with a chance to genuinely vault themselves into the discussion.