Duke’s bowl game against Ole Miss will reportedly be officiated by a Big Ten crew

According to a Monday report from Football Zebras, a crew of Big Ten officials will work the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl between Duke and Ole Miss.

The Duke Blue Devils will meet the Ole Miss Rebels in Jacksonville for the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl on January 2, and according to a Monday report from Football Zebras, a Big Ten officiating crew will preside over the game.

With an ACC and an SEC team in the game, the referees needed to come from one of the other conferences. The crew itself has not been determined yet, and with the Blue Devils close to the end of the bowl calendar, the exact officials will likely depend on the first few weeks of the college football postseason.

The Rebels started the year with College Football Playoff aspirations after a phenomenal transfer class, but a three-loss regular season ended Lane Kiffin’s chances to make the 12-team bracket. Despite the record, however, Ole Miss ended the year seventh in scoring offense (37.5 points per game) and tied for fourth in scoring defense (13.9 points per game), so it will provide a major obstacle for Duke’s second 10-win season in school history.

The final Duke football game of the season will kick off at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time on January 2 and will be broadcast on ESPN.

Duke football picks up third Class of 2026 commitment from a South Carolina wide receiver

The Duke Blue Devils added their third commitment from the Class of 2026 on Monday, a 6-foot-4 wide receiver from South Carolina.

The Duke Blue Devils notched their third commitment from the Class of 2026 on Monday when Jude Hall, a 6-foot-4 wideout from South Carolina, announced his decision on social media.

The Christ Church Episcopal School product is not currently ranked by 247Sports, but at 6-foot-4 and 185 pounds, he clearly possesses the physical tools to play outside at the collegiate level. According to MaxPreps, he led the Cavaliers with 57 receptions for 795 yards and five touchdowns in 11 games, and he caught nine touchdowns as a sophomore in 2023.

Duke’s receiver depth was one of its best qualities in 2024, but the position group will experience a firm overhaul over the next two seasons. [autotag]Eli Pancol[/autotag] and [autotag]Jordan Moore[/autotag], who combined for 1.539 yards and 16 touchdowns, both just finished their senior season. Sahmir Hagans will be a redshirt senior in 2025, and Old Dominion transfer Javon Harvey just used his final season of eligibility.

Hall joins four-star offensive lineman Sean Stover and three-star defensive lineman Ayden Cain in Duke’s current 2026 recruiting class.

TaxSlayer Gator Bowl tickets: How to buy Duke football vs Ole Miss tickets

All you need to know about the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl, where Duke will take on SEC powerhouse Ole Miss on January 2nd.

The Duke Blue Devils will cap off their stellar nine-win season with the toughest test of the year, as Duke is heading to Jacksonville to play in the Gator Bowl for the first time in program history.

Duke will face off against Ole Miss – a College Football Playoff contender for much of the year – on Thursday, January 2nd, at 7:30 p.m. at EverBank Stadium in Jacksonville, Florida.

Tickets for the game are already available. At the time of publication, the cheapest available tickets for the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl matchup between Duke and Ole Miss cost $45.

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Duke ended the regular season with a walk-off win at Wake Forest to finish the year at 9-3 in coach Manny Diaz’s first season. Ole Miss (9-3), meanwhile, was ranked No. 14 overall by the College Football Playoff committee, just missing out on the College Football Playoff.

Get your Duke vs Ole Miss Gator Bowl tickets now before they sell out.

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Duke football draws the Ole Miss Rebels for the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl in January

The Duke Blue Devils are headed to Jacksonville for a battle with the Ole Miss Rebels in January’s TaxSlayer Gator Bowl.

For the first time in program history, the Duke Blue Devils will play a bowl game in Jacksonville.

After the team’s 9-3 season under new head coach [autotag]Manny Diaz[/autotag], Duke drew the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl for a postseason battle against the Mississippi Rebels from the SEC.

The Blue Devils overcame three two-score fourth-quarter deficits in 2024, including a 20-point comeback against the North Carolina Tar Heels and a 14-point comeback against Wake Forest in the final game. Redshirt sophomore quarterback [autotag]Maalik Murphy[/autotag] threw a program-record 26 touchdown passes, including a walk-off score to Jordan Moore on the final play against the Demon Deacons, and Duke swept UNC, Wake Forest, and NC State for the first time since 2013.

Ole Miss started the year with playoff aspirations under head coach Lane Kiffin, and a 5-1 start to the season kept the Rebels in the thick of the hunt. An overtime loss to the LSU Tigers and a stunning road loss to the Florida Gators knocked them down to 9-3, however, and even a late win over the Georgia Bulldogs couldn’t move them back into the field.

The bowl game kicks off at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday, January 2, and fans can watch on ESPN.

Duke football receives 29 votes to just miss top 25 in postseason AP Poll

The Associated Press revealed its top 25 college football teams after the conference championships on Sunday with Duke just missing the cut.

The Duke Blue Devils await their assignment on the college football bowl schedule, but the Associated Press voters didn’t quite forget about them on Sunday.

Duke earned 29 votes in the first postseason AP Top 25 College Football Poll, not enough to crack the top 25 but the third-most of any team on the outside looking in.

The Blue Devils lost both of their games against current top-25 opponents, but they took the SMU Mustangs to overtime one week before they built an 11-point lead over Miami on the road. Including their last-second field goal to force overtime against Northwestern in Week 2, Duke put together four fourth-quarter comebacks while only losing three games.

The Clemson Tigers, after winning the ACC in surprising fashion on Saturday night, shifted up four spots to 13th. They’ll get an automatic berth into the College Football Playoff as a conference champion, but the final at-large spot will come down to the Alabama Crimson Tide and SMU Mustangs.

The AP voters put Alabama ahead by a single vote, putting the two teams 11th and 12th in the standings.

One of the top 2025 Duke football signees reacts to assistant coach departure

One of the Blue Devils’ top signees shared a social media post on Saturday after Duke’s running backs coach left to helm the FIU Panthers

The Duke Blue Devils lost running backs coach Willie Simmons to a head-coaching job on Saturday morning, and one of the top signees in the school’s 2025 class seemed a little disappointed with the news.

ESPN reporter Pete Thamel, among others, reported that Simmons agreed to a four-year contract as the Florida International head coach. Three-star running back Nate Sheppard wordlessly reacted on social media by posting a face-palm emoji on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Sheppard is 247Sports’ No. 29 running back in the 2025 class, making him the fourth-highest player in the Blue Devils’ recruiting class as of Saturday. According to MaxPreps, the Mandeville High School product has 1,340 rushing yards and seven touchdowns in just seven games as a high-school senior.

For any Duke fans panicking about Sheppard’s potential status with the program, he signed his letter of intent with the Blue Devils on early signing day this Wednesday. Sheppard’s already listed on the team website as part of the 2025 roster, so the odds of this move preventing him from ending up in Durham seem low.

Duke football assistant coach agrees to become Florida International head coach

Duke football lost one of its top assistants to a head coaching job on Saturday morning.

The Duke football program lost one of its most decorated assistant coaches on Saturday morning when the FIU Panthers reportedly hired Willie Simmons as their next head coach.

According to a report from ESPN’s Pete Thamel, Simmons agreed to a four-year contract with the program.

Simmons spent the past season as the Blue Devils’ running backs coach, and he helped veteran transfer Star Thomas and sophomore Peyton Jones both average more than four yards per carry. With presumed starter Jaquez Moore out with an injury for most of the season, that duo combined for 1,170 yards and 10 scores on the ground, and Thomas rattled off three straight 100-yard games in Weeks 3-5.

Before Simmons joined Manny Diaz’s staff this offseason, he spent nearly a decade as a head coach at Prairie View A&M and Florida A&M. He compiled a 66-24 record with both programs, including a stunning 12-1 season with the Rattlers in 2023.

FIU finished with a 4-8 record in 2024, the program’s third straight season with that exact record, and the Panthers have a 13-40 mark since 2020.

Duke football has the second-best record in the ACC over the last three seasons

Since the start of the 2022 season, the Duke Blue Devils have the second-best win percentage of any ACC football program.

The Duke Blue Devils have found some incredible form on the gridiron over the last three seasons, winning at least eight games in every campaign despite an offseason coaching change. However, the performance in Durham looks even more impressive when compared to the team’s peers around the conference.

Since the start of the 2022 season, Duke has won 26 games, tied for the second-most of any ACC team. In fact, because of an additional loss by the Louisville Cardinals (albeit in last year’s conference championship game), the Blue Devils have the second-best win percentage among the 14 traditional ACC teams in that period.

Duke has an overall win percentage of 68.4% in this recent run. Only the Clemson Tigers (74.4%) have been better, and only five total ACC programs have won more than 60% of their contests in the last three seasons. Even the Florida State Seminoles (64.1%) dropped below the Blue Devils thanks to a stunning 2-10 campaign in 2024.

Even just in conference games, Duke is one of four ACC teams with a .500 record or better in each of the last three seasons. Only Clemson (19-5) and Louisville (16-8) have been better than the Blue Devils’ 14-10 record against conference opponents.

Check out each team’s record, both overall and in conference play, below (note that new members SMU, Stanford, and California were excluded due to their different conference schedules in 2022-23).

Team Overall Record Overall % Conference Record Conference %
Clemson 29-10 0.744 19-5 0.792
Duke 26-12 0.684 14-10 0.583
Louisville 26-13 0.667 16-8 0.667
Florida State 25-14 0.641 14-10 0.583
NC State 23-15 0.60.5 13-11 0.542
Miami 22-15 0.595 12-12 0.500
North Carolina 23-16 0.590 13-11 0.542
Syracuse 22-16 0.579 11-13 0.458
Georgia Tech 19-18 0.514 14-10 0.583
Pittsburgh 19-18 0.514 10-14 0.417
Boston College 17-20 0.459 9-15 0.375
Virginia Tech 16-20 0.444 10-13 0.435
Wake Forest 16-21 0.444 6-18 0.250
Virginia 11-23 0.324 6-17 0.261

Manny Diaz finishes second in ACC Coach of the Year voting after Duke’s nine-win season

After a nine-win debut season with the Duke Blue Devils, Manny Diaz earned three votes for ACC Coach of the Year.

Duke football coach [autotag]Manny Diaz[/autotag] picked off a few program milestones in his first season with the Blue Devils, and three voters nominated him as the ACC Coach of the Year at the conclusion of the regular season.

SMU’s Rhett Lashlee dominated the results with 64 votes after the Mustangs won all eight conference games in their first season with the ACC, but Diaz was the only other coach to earn at least three selections.

Diaz and the Blue Devils took Lashlee and the Mustangs to overtime in Week 9, one of just three Duke losses this season. The program won its first five games for the first time this century thanks to a 20-point comeback over the North Carolina Tar Heels, and the Blue Devils swept their three in-state conference rivals for the first time since 2013.

Diaz, a defensive coach by trade, helped oversee one of the conference’s most destructive units. The Blue Devils surrendered 22.2 points and 344.3 yards per game, ranking third and fourth among the conference, and they racked up the second-most tackles for loss in the FBS with 110.

Duke wide receiver named semifinalist for Comeback Player of the Year Award

Duke wide receiver Eli Pancol has been named a semifinalist for Comeback Player of the Year after his resurgent regular season.

The 2024 college football regular season ended with the Duke Blue Devils clinching their second nine-win season in three years. The path to 9-3 wasn’t easy, and it took a lot of impressive play.

Few players on the team matched the effort from wide receiver [autotag]Eli Pancol[/autotag], who played all 12 games after missing a majority of the prior two seasons. His return to the field earned him a place among the 12 semifinalists for the 2024 Comeback Player of the Year Award, according to a Tuesday announcement from the College Sports Communicators.

The award, which came about in 2018, acknowledges college football stars who overcame injury or various circumstances to see the field.

Pancol missed the last four games of the 2022 season with a broken ankle, and a fracture dislocation in his other ankle in training camp kept him sidelined for the entire 2023 campaign.

The fifth-year wideout roared back into competition with four touchdown receptions in his first three games. Pancol finished the 2024 regular season with a team-high 55 receptions for 741 yards and nine touchdowns. Those numbers include two massive performances against the SMU Mustangs and Virginia Tech Hokies, and he finished those contests with 16 catches for 326 combined yards and four touchdowns.

Pancol was one of two wide receivers on the semifinalist list, joined by Tennessee Volunteers star Bru McCoy. Louisville quarterback Tyler Shough and Syracuse tight end Oronde Gadsden II were the other two ACC nominees.

Three of the athletes will be honored at the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl, which takes place on December 31.