Duke’s full schedule released

Duke will play all four of its non-conference games to start the upcoming football season.

And then Manny Diaz’s reintroduction to the ACC will be against Duke’s biggest rival, and against the coach who fired him at Texas.

The Blue Devils’ full schedule was released on Wednesday evening. Of particular note was that Duke’s season will start with games against Elon, Northwestern, UConn and Middle Tennessee before Duke plays host to UNC, coached by Mack Brown and holding a five-year winning streak in the series.

Duke is coming off an 8-5 season that ended with last month’s 17-10 win over Troy in the Birmingham Bowl.

As announced earlier this week, Duke will play host to Elon on Aug. 30 for its season opener. That’s a Friday night and serves as the Blue Devils’ game against an FCS team.

Also already announced this week was Duke’s home game against Florida State landing on a Friday night (Oct. 18).

Game times and TV networks for the first few weeks will be announced later — that announcement came May 31 of last year, to give you an idea of the timing. Game times and networks after the first three weeks are made on a weekly basis during the season.

One important thing to keep in mind: Every team in college football will have at least two off weeks this season (ones that play in Week 0 could have three). It’s a calendar issue when that many Saturdays pass between Labor Day and Thanksgiving; the last time it happened was 2019.

Here is Duke’s full schedule:

8/30 – vs. Elon (Friday night)

9/7 – at Northwestern

9/14 – vs. UConn

9/21 – at Middle Tennessee

9/28 – vs. UNC

10/5 – at Georgia Tech

10/12 – Off

10/18 – vs. Florida State (Friday night)

10/26 – vs. SMU

11/2 – at Miami

11/9 – at N.C. State

11/16 – Off

11/23 – vs. Virginia Tech

11/30 – at Wake Forest