Duke football is in a good, but not yet great, place right now

Very few college football teams managed to earn the kudos from their 2022 performances that Duke football did, as the historically snake-bitten program recently locked up its first season with nine or more wins since its 2014-15 run.

Any football team that has a bumpy background will turn heads with an unexpectedly good season, but this Duke scenario goes the extra mile when looking at just how large of a leap the program took.

In 2021, the Blue Devils were not just bad, they were terrible. Sitting at 3-9 with a loss to Georgia Tech (an ACC team with the same record), they were officially the worst squad that the Atlantic Coast had to offer. Along with that, they were set to start 2022 with new head coach Mike Elko — a man who had no prior experience with the title.

In other words, the bar could not have possibly been set any lower for Duke as it strolled into this season. However, after a 9-4 run that saw both an impressive bowl win and an ability to compete with rivals, I suggest that we do not make a habit of judging books by their covers.

The stretch of success has led to a lot of Blue Devils hype from college football media, ranging from analysts like Kirk Herbstreit and EJ Manuel highlighting them as a future ACC threat to Saturday Road’s Brett Friedlander already humoring them as one of the conference’s playoff hopefuls. In response to all of them, I quote the legendary Lee Corso: “Not so fast, my friend!”

Obviously, the Elko era coming out swinging so quickly has given Duke fans a lot to look forward to, but let’s not commit to the idea of the Blue Devils making a run for an ACC title just yet — and we’re definitely putting a pin in that whole CFP conversation.

As I recently said about the attention being given to UNC football, hype can very easily be corrupted by delusion, and I feel that is what’s happening here. We see a historically troubled program have a turnaround year and are ready to give it the world — but we fail to look at the quality of the year itself.

Objectively, how good was Duke football’s season?

For starters, a 9-4 season is objectively a good one, but it is nothing more than that. Such a statement would hold true regardless of the schedule a team had, but it especially does so in Duke’s case.

Of Duke’s four losses, half of them came against teams that finished 2022 with losing records. As for the others, they were against teams that finished with the same amount of wins as the Blue Devils, meaning that they, too, were visibly limited.

Now one good thing to note is that none of those losses were decided by more than eight points, so Duke was in a good position to win all 13 of its 2022 matchups. But, when none of the said matchups are against opponents with double-digit wins, it’s difficult to gauge just how well the team would hold up against some of the more elite squads out there.

Speaking of which, let’s take a look at what all 2023 has in store for the Blue Devils. Could their next run better show us the height that their ceiling reaches? At first glance, I would certainly say so.

Duke has several harsh games on their 2023 calendar, ones that, in my opinion, blow this season’s slate out of the water. The most noteworthy of those games include Clemson, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, at North Carolina, and at Florida State.

Each of those future opponents did at least one of the following: hit nine wins or more this season, or beat Duke head-to-head this season. In other words, all of them have proven that they can play at the level of and/or beat Duke. With all of that said, I would not put my money on the Blue Devils tearing off some sort of outstanding run this fall — whether it be for the ACC crown or a playoff berth.

I am one of the many that are proud of what Duke football has accomplished as of late, and it has quickly become one of college football’s underdog stories that everyone loves to root for. However, I am a realist first and a fan second. If the best this team could do was go 9-4 with that weak of a 2022 schedule, it would be ridiculous to expect a stronger showing to come from the 2023 one.