Thanks to their 20-point comeback against the North Carolina Tar Heels last week, the Duke Blue Devils remain among the 19 undefeated college football teams this season.
The 5-0 start, Duke’s first since 1994, means that the Blue Devils have a 22-9 record since the start of the 2022 season. That doesn’t mean that USA TODAY Sports’ Paul Myerberg likes their chances to win a sixth straight game.
Myerberg predicted when each unbeaten team would lose its first game on Thursday, and he thinks that Georgia Tech will knock Duke from the undefeated ranks on Saturday.
The Yellow Jackets have lost two of their past three games, including a 31-19 loss to a ranked Louisville team in their last appearance. However, Georgia Tech still beat the Florida State Seminoles in the first game of the season and gave the Cardinals all they could handle, holding the Louisville offense to 2/9 on third down. If not for a fumble and a blocked field goal turning into touchdowns, Duke might be facing a ranked 4-1 Yellow Jackets team.
Myerberg’s prediction stemmed more from Duke’s resume than Georgia Tech’s, however.
“Duke has wins against Northwestern, Connecticut and North Carolina by a combined 12 points, giving the strong impression a loss is lurking somewhere around the corner,” Myerberg wrote.
Some fair questions remain from those performances, including a single touchdown in regulation against the Wildcats and a blown 17-point lead against the Huskies. However, the Blue Devils defense has not allowed a fourth-quarter touchdown yet this season, a statistic that helped Duke still win all three of those games.
The Blue Devils kick off against Georgia Tech at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time on ACC Network.