Tag: Duke football

Where does Graham Barton fit on the newest SB Nation big board?

SB Nation’s J.P. Acosta released his top-50 prospects in the 2024 NFL draft, where does Duke lineman Graham Barton fit compared to his peers?

SB Nation writer J.P. Acosta revealed his top 50 prospects in the 2024 NFL draft on Friday, and Duke lineman Graham Barton ended up as his 37th overall player in the class.

Barton was Acosta’s ninth-highest offensive lineman on the big board, and 11 prospects from the trenches ended up inside the top 50.

Oregon center Jackson Powers-Johnson and Washington guard Troy Fautanu were the only two consensus interior prospects to end up higher than Barton on the rankings. However, Acosta also floated the idea of Oregon State tackle Taliese Fuaga shifting to guard, a position he hasn’t been projected toward as much during the pre-draft process.

Fuaga embracing a potential shift inside could impact Barton’s spots on some teams’ boards, but Fuaga has been a consensus top-15 pick for much of the draft leadup. His status likely won’t affect Barton much.

Barton gets the chance to further affirm himself as a first-round pick at the NFL Combine next week in Indianapolis

Where did Graham Barton go in College Sports Wire’s pre-Combine mock draft?

Duke lineman Graham Barton was picked to reinforce the Buccaneers’ offensive interior in College Sports Wire’s last mock draft before the NFL Combine.

College Sports Wire released a pre-Combine mock draft on Friday, and Duke offensive lineman Graham Barton ended up in one of his most popular landing spots.

Staff writer Ryan Roberts forecasted that the former Blue Devil would end up with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who currently own the 26th pick in the first round.

Barton played tackle at Duke, but he projects more as a guard at the next level. However, Roberts thinks the Duke lineman has the chops to play center, a position Barton started a handful of games at while he was a freshman.

“(Barton) has the profile to potentially play immediately in that spot,” Roberts wrote, adding that he could help replace longtime center Ryan Jensen, who recently retired.

Barton currently projects as a late first-round pick, with most mock drafts sending him to Tampa Bay, San Fransisco, Green Bay, or Miami.

Blue Devils confirm they are in EA Sports College Football 25

Duke football will officially be included in EA Sports College Football 25, the return of the highly anticipated college football video game series.

It was probably a foregone conclusion for most Duke fans at this point, but the Blue Devils are officially in the game.

Duke football announced on Thursday through social media that the team would be included in EA Sports College Football 25 when it releases this summer.

Blue Devil fans will (more than likely) be able to work with new quarterback transfer Maalik Murphy and other Duke stars as they build a dynasty in Durham.

Coaches, like new Blue Devils leader Manny Diaz, will reportedly not be in the game.

An ESPN report on Thursday said players do need to opt in for their name, image, and likeness to be used in the new game. Players would be compensated $600 and a free copy of the game if they chose to do so.

The game does not yet have an official release date, but it is expected in the summer of 2024.

Graham Barton goes to NFC champion 49ers in Daniel Jeremiah’s mock draft 2.0

NFL.com’s Daniel Jeremiah released an updated mock draft on Tuesday, and Duke offensive lineman Graham Barton ended up with one of this year’s Super Bowl teams.

NFL.com draft expert Daniel Jeremiah released his second mock draft of the 2024 cycle on Tuesday, and Duke offensive lineman Graham Barton barely snuck into the first round.

The left tackle, who is expected to play guard or maybe center once he starts playing on Sundays, went 31st overall to the defending NFC champion San Fransisco 49ers.

The 49ers, who have won the NFC in two of the past five seasons and been to two more conference championship games in that time period, have future Hall of Famer Trent Williams at tackle but need reinforcements in the interior.

The Niners are actually one of Barton’s most popular destinations in current mock drafts, along with the Miami Dolphins, Green Bay Packers, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Barton gets a chance to solidify himself further as a first-round pick at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis at the end of the month.

College Football Playoff committee approves five automatic bids for conference champions

The College Football Playoff, set to expand from four teams to 12 this season, approved an additional tweak on Tuesday that awards five automatic bids for conference champions.

The College Football Playoff era will change dramatically in 2024, starting with the expansion from four teams to 12 to let more teams control their own national championship destiny.

On Tuesday, the board of managers unanimously passed an additional tweak to the expanded format. The new addition will reward five conference champions with automatic bids into the playoff field, with the remaining seven spots left for at-large bids given to the highest-ranked teams remaining.

The change comes after the near-complete dissolution of the Pac-12, which now consists of just Washington State and Oregon State after teams split for the Big Ten and Big 12.

With the Power 5 conferences now effectively the Power 4, an ACC champion is seemingly assured of one of the five automatic bids.

What are Graham Barton’s most popular NFL landing places?

We’re still two months away from the NFL Draft, but Mock Draft Database has four teams showing up over and over for Duke lineman Graham Barton.

It’s never too early to start thinking about the NFL draft, especially with the Super Bowl now in the rearview mirror.

Duke offensive lineman Graham Barton still needs to get through the pre-draft process, including the NFL Combine at the end of February, but the NFL Mock Draft Database has kept a close eye on his traction from draft experts, and the same four teams show up routinely.

A scroll through Barton’s recent spots in national mock drafts show almost every team between 20th and 32nd in the first round. In fact, the Blue Devil is so spread out that the site’s consensus mock draft has him listed as one of the few players without a majority landing spot in the first round. However, the Miami Dolphins, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, San Fransisco 49ers, and Green Bay Packers appear more than anyone else.

The numbers are backed up by some recent big names, too. PFF’s Trevor Sikemma and ESPN’s Field Yates gave Barton to Tampa Bay in their recent projections, and The Ringer’s Benjamin Solak tracked Barton to Green Bay in his first-round mock.

As the draft order stands right now, the Dolphins own the 21st pick. Green Bay follows at 25th, with Tampa Bay one spot behind them at 26th. The 49ers own the 31st pick, the second-to-last selection of opening night.

The site tracks Barton as the 30th-ranked player in the 2024 class, according to an average of the big boards in its database, and the Duke lineman is selected in the first round of 53.6% of the mock drafts tracked.

Manny Diaz hire given a ‘B’ by On3’s Coaching Carousel report card

Jesse Simonton released his grades for all college football coaching hires in this past cycle. See what grade he gave Diaz and how he stacked up to the others.

On3’s Jesse Simonton released his grades for the biggest coaching hires in college football on Thursday, and he decided the Blue Devils earned a B for new coach Manny Diaz.

Diaz, who had spent his previous years as a head coach at Miami and as the defensive coordinator at Penn State, was announced in early December.

During his tenure with the Hurricanes, he compiled a 21-15 record and led his team to at least six wins in all three seasons, and the Nittany Lions had one of the best defenses in the country with 13.5 points allowed per game last season

B was actually the most common grade given in the post. Of the 12 coaching hires mentioned in Simonton’s post, 10 of them were given at least a B, and five of the names were given exactly a B.

Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer, Michigan State’s Jonathan Smith, and Houston’s Willie Fritz were the only hires given an A.

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The Blue Devils start the Manny Diaz era at home on August 30 against Elon. The team’s spring game will take place on April 20.

Every ACC football team’s ESPN preseason SP+ ranking

The ACC has some strong teams heading into the 2024 season, according to ESPN’s SP+.

The 2024 college football season is months away, but we all know that football remains on the mind throughout the offseason. 

Early rankings have been released all over the place, with ESPN’s Bill Connelly recently releasing the preseason ESPN SP+ rankings ($$$) for the 2024 season. These SP+ rankings consider multiple key factors regarding a football team, including returning production, recent recruiting, and recent history. A strong model; here is a bit more of what Connelly had to say about the rankings. 

“It’s a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. It is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking. Along those same lines, these projections aren’t intended to be a guess at what the AP Top 25 will look like at the end of the season. These are simply early offseason power rankings based on the information we have been able to gather to date.”

Straightforward and to the point, these are power rankings based on what we know right now. So, how do Clemson and the rest of the ACC stack up in the first SP+ rankings for 2024? Check it out below.

Updated 2/16

Graham Barton gets another first-round projection, this time from The Ringer’s Ben Solak

Graham Barton seems to be more of a consensus first-rounder by the day as The Ringer’s Ben Solak mocked him within his first 25 picks on Thursday.

The Ringer’s Benjamin Solak dropped his first mock draft of the 2024 cycle on Thursday afternoon, and he sounded confident Duke offensive lineman Graham Barton would hear his name called on night one.

Solak projected Barton would be picked by the Green Bay Packers with the 25th pick of the opening round, where he’d pair with a young offense centered around burgeoning star Jordan Love at quarterback.

The Ringer NFL writer described the former Blue Devil as “this year’s ‘ho-hum, not sexy, definitely a first rounder though’ prospect.” His colleagues seem to agree with him, as Barton has gotten a first-round pick in mock drafts from The Athletic, Pro Football Focus, and ESPN this week alone.

The Athletic’s Dane Brugler has Barton as the 27th overall prospect in the draft in his recent Big Board.

Who takes Graham Barton in the first round of ESPN’s latest mock draft?

Duke offensive lineman Graham Barton is gaining first-round traction as an ESPN mock draft from earlier this week paired him with an NFC South team.

Don’t look now, but Duke offensive lineman Graham Barton is picking up serious first-round momentum.

After the former Blue Devil went within the first round of mock drafts from The Athletic and Pro Football Focus earlier this week, ESPN’s Field Yates had the Duke lineman go 26th overall to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in his most recent draft projection.

Yates praised Barton’s versatility, as the Blue Devil started at offensive tackle the past three seasons but started his Duke career playing center as a freshman. The longtime ESPN analyst pointed out that recent Tampa draft picks like Cody Mauch and Robert Hainsey were also flexible interior linemen.

PFF’s Trevor Sikkema had the Buccaneers select Barton with the exact same pick in his mock draft on Tuesday, so the draft world can clearly see a pairing starting to form.

Barton was the third interior offensive lineman taken in Yates’ mock behind Oregon center Jackson Powers-Johnson and Washington guard Troy Fautanu. Nine offensive linemen came off the board in Yates’ first 32 projected picks, including six tackles.