Even though we do not know all of the dates, we do know whom the 12 opponents for Duke will be this year. We also know the official dates for all four of our non-conference games this season. This is the unofficial template for what we know about the schedule so far.
9/3 (Thursday) at Tulane
9/12 N.C. Central
9/19 Northwestern
9/26 ???
10/3 ???
10/10 at Army
10/17 ???
10/24 ???
10/31 ???
11/7 ???
11/14 ???
11/21 ???
11/28 ???
We start the season with a primetime, Thursday night game on the road against Tulane. Although our Thursday night appearance in 2014 was dreadful, being able to play on the first night of the season and on ESPN is another good step for the program. Tulane will be a good team, but we should be better. If healthy, there is really no excuse for us to lose this game. The home opener against NCCU the following week will be what it usually is, a blowout. One of the games I am very excited for is the home matchup with Northwestern. Under head coach Pat Fitzgerald, NW has had a few really good years in recent history, and they are always a competitive team. But after making five straight bowl appearances, they have failed to make a bowl game the previous two years. It will be interesting to see how they look come September. Our final non-conference game is a trip to New York to play Army, whom we last played (and beat) in 2011.
We do not know the dates for our eight conference games. But we do know who those eight opponents are. They will go as following:
Home:
Georgia Tech
Miami
Pittsburgh
Boston College
Away:
Virginia
Virginia Tech
Wake Forest
Chapel Hill
Boston College is our crossover opponent this year after having played Syracuse in 2014. A home game with Boston College is a gift from the ACC office. Although BC played well in 2014, they lose their all-star QB Tyler Murphy, and should be less formidable in 2015. We luckily escape the doom of playing FSU, Clemson, or Louisville in that game for another season.
I really like the home/away layout for the 2015 season. Miami and GT are most likely the best two teams on our conference schedule. For us to have both of those games at home is a great advantage.
Another big thing to keep your eye on this year is the elimination of one of the two bye weeks. For three out of the past four seasons we have had two bye weeks in the schedule. But if you look at the template above, there are only 13 weeks in the season before ACC Championship Saturday. Since we play 12 games, this means there will be only one bye week. That is vitally important for the health of the team. In our best-case scenario, our bye will be after either our 5th, 6th, or 7th game. Having a bye week too early or too late can do a lot of harm to your team. Seeing where that bye falls is a big deal for the 2015 season.
I will also be very interested to see if we play another Thursday night game during the season. I would not be surprised if the ACC has us play another primetime ESPN game. Maybe I am wrong, but the success of our program gives us a good chance to play games on national TV. I would rather all of our games be on Saturday, but this is another thing to look for when the schedule comes out.
Overall, our 2015 schedule will be the last schedule for a long time that looks “easy” for this Duke team. In following years, we make trips to Louisville, Baylor, Notre Dame, Florida State, Northwestern, etc. This 2015 schedule will give the Duke team another chance to compete for a division championship and win 9, 10, or 11 games. Our toughest games will be at home, and our conference road games are all local and winnable. I am very excited to see how the schedule looks, and we will be able to talk about it more in the upcoming weeks.
GO DUKE!
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