We know so much about Duke’s football team entering this season.

Riley Leonard is going to be the quarterback. He’s surrounded by all but one of his key contributors at the skill positions from last year. The offensive line has three returning starters and the two new ones have experience.

Duke’s defense has a few new faces but it’s not like that unit went through an overhaul. DeWayne Carter and Brandon Johnson were two of the most-important players to last season’s defense and they’re back. Two of the newcomers who’ll start have a combined 13 years of college football between them.

And yet, you don’t know what you don’t know when you go into a season opener.

“The thing that's true about openers is this, they're lost sometimes a lot more than they are won,” coach Mike Elko said. “That's kind of regardless of talent level. You never know what you're going to get in an opener from your opponent or from yourselves. Those are always unpredictable things, right?”

That was rhetorical … but yes.

Duke enters Monday night’s opener against No. 9 Clemson with an idea of who its players are and what they did well last season. The Blue Devils know the type of work they put in during the second summer with this coaching staff.

“You never know until you play somebody right? That's one of the challenges of college football is, we've had 38 practices against ourselves between the UCF game and the Clemson game,” Elko said. “We haven't had a chance to go out there against anybody else. So, you think you know what it's going to look like, but you never really do.

“Certainly, amongst all that uncertainty, experience helps. Guys coming back helps. Being in year two, it helps to have coaches back on your staff. I think all of those things are certainly positives for our program. At the end of the day, we still have to go out there next Monday night and play the game the way we're capable of and that's ultimately what it's all going to come down to.”

So, here’s what we know: Duke has some advantages in experience and familiarity. That’s going to have to help against the program that’s had a stranglehold on the ACC for nearly one decade. And we know there are still some pitfalls of the unknown Duke will have to overcome.

And we know that one game isn’t going to make or break the season; especially not the opener.

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Here’s a primer on what you need to know for Monday night’s game:

Time: 8 p.m.

Location: Wallace Wade Stadium.

TV: ESPN.

Announcers: Dave Pasch (play-by-play), Dusty Dvoracek (analyst), Tom Luginbill (sidelines).

Radio link: Listen to the crew that knows Duke best.

Forecast: Clear, mid-80s around kickoff, high-70s by game’s end. Light winds (if any).

Series; last meeting: Clemson leads 37-16-1; Clemson won 35-6 in 2018.

Records: Both 0-0.

Stat to watch: Plus-16.

Yep, we’re going to talk about last year’s turnover margin one more time (at least).

Duke was plus-16 in turnover margin last season, one of the driving factors in going from a team that won five games in the previous two seasons to winning nine last year.

It’ll take most of the season, if not all of it, to flesh out whether that was more fluke or luck — but we get our first glimpse at it in the opener.

Turnover margin is obviously a two-part stat. The Blue Devils tied for fifth in the country in giveaways (10) last season, and their takeaways (26) were tied for seventh-most. Those were massive leaps forward from a previous season when Duke ranked in the 90s nationally for both (21 turnovers committed, 14 created).

Clemson has been average in turnover margin for the last two seasons, which helps explain part of why the Tigers haven’t been in the College Football Playoff. In three seasons with Trevor Lawrence at QB (2018-20), Clemson was a combined plus-30; in the last two seasons, the Tigers are even (minus-1 last year, plus-1 in 2021).

Matchup to watch: Clemson’s defensive line vs. Duke’s offensive line.

If you’re picking one position group on Duke’s roster that *has* to play well for the Blue Devils to win, this is it.

The Tigers’ defensive line is a grown-man unit. Three starters are entering their sixth seasons in college football; the other is entering his fifth. Defensive end Xavier Thomas looked like a surefire first-round pick playing as a freshman in 2018 on a unit that had three first-rounders, but an extended bout of COVID and injuries have delayed his NFL entry.

Duke feels good about its top five offensive linemen, three of whom are returning starters. Improved offensive line play was another example of how far the Blue Devils came last season from the last few years of the David Cutcliffe era.

Only once last season did Duke play a defensive front as talented as Clemson’s, though.

That was against Pittsburgh, the only loss on Duke’s ledger after October. The Blue Devils had 63 rushing yards in that two-point loss; in every other game last season, Duke had at least 115 rushing yards.

Quote of the week: “It’s a long way to get to the locker room. A long way. And in college football, you barely have enough time to go to the bathroom and talk for 30 seconds in there and it’s time to go again.” – Clemson coach Dabo Swinney on the distance between the field and locker rooms, lamenting the time he loses at halftime.

It’s worth pointing out: College halftimes are 20 minutes, high school halftimes are typically around 15, and the NFL has halftimes of 12-13 minutes.

Opposing offensive player to watch: Receiver Antonio Williams (No. 0).

It’s an obvious choice … but not the most obvious of choices.

Williams was Clemson’s top receiver last season as a freshman, with 56 catches for 604 yards. By making 10 starts, he became the first freshman receiver to start that many games for the Tigers since Sammy Watkins in 2011.

His average depth of target was 7.1 yards, lowest of any Clemson receiver with at least 10 targets (per Pro Football Focus). Williams’ 6.1 yards after catch average was second-highest among Clemson receivers.

In short: Most of Williams’ catches are likely to be short and allow him space to create after the catch.

The 5-11, 195-pounder was used almost exclusively in the slot (93% of snaps) last season. That means it’ll likely be one of Duke’s two nickels, Brandon Johnson and Chandler Rivers, matched up against him in man-to-man situations.

Opposing defensive player to watch: Defensive tackle Tyler Davis (No. 13).

So many options to choose from that we’re doing some editorializing here.

Davis was the Tigers’ best defensive lineman — not either of the first-round picks, Bryan Bresee or Myles Murphy — when I saw this team a year ago.

Davis is a 6-2, 300-pounder who’s able to provide a pass rush while being one of the best run-stuffers in the ACC. He and Duke’s DeWayne Carter were the first-team All-ACC selections at defensive tackle and it was an easy choice on both.

The Apopka, Fla., native had the most QB pressures of any returning Tiger last season (36) and had 23 run stops, which was fourth on the team and first among non-linebackers (per PFF).

Young Blue Devil to watch: Nickel/cornerback Chandler Rivers (No. 0).

It’s already been explained how little Duke will rely on its freshman class, so we’re going to delve into the second-year player crop often for this category.

Might as well start with a player who showed up here a bunch last season.

Rivers, as mentioned, is bound to match up at least several times against Clemson’s leading receiver. The second-year cornerback should be up for the challenge if he remains on the upward trajectory he finished on last season.

The 5-10, 178-pounder from Beaumont, Texas, had his snap count ramped up over the second half of last season and played better through the increased responsibility. In Duke’s fourth, fifth and sixth games, Rivers graded out below 50.0 on PFF in each game; over the last seven games, he was above 50.0 in each game, above 60.0 in six of seven, and above 70.0 twice (against Miami and UCF).

Don’t forget about: Tight end Nicky Dalmolin (No. 81).

Dalmolin is a returning starter and had a solid season a year ago, though he missed Duke’s final three games.

Which lands him here.

The 6-4, 241-pounder had 21 catches for 170 yards last season, sporting a QB rating of 126.4 when he was targeted (PFF). In the three games that he missed, backup tight end Cole Finney had two catches for 15 yards.

Dalmolin is a little more intriguing heading into this season because of Eli Pancol’s injury. We’ve documented that Pancol was the only receiver among Duke’s returning corps with a big body, so his absence creates something of a void.

That could be filled by a receiver, or Duke could split Dalmolin — a receiver in high school — outside to give Riley Leonard a bigger target.

Prediction: Oh, there are a lot of directions this could go.

I’ll get this in here early: I think it will benefit Duke that it’s the first game of a QB/offensive coordinator combo on the other side of the field. Cade Klubnik and Garrett Riley might start the season with fireworks and render this moot; it’s more likely they’ll have a learning curve to overcome.

That’s where Duke has an edge; Leonard and offensive coordinator Kevin Johns got plenty familiar last season and with as much of the offense returning, Duke hasn’t had any major adjustment with its offense.

One of the aspects where Clemson has a distinct advantage is the stage. It’s a national program that plays in primetime games like this often; Duke doesn’t have many players who have experienced this level of circumstance surrounding a game. It’s an interesting tug of war between Duke having older players, but ones who aren’t as seasoned when it comes to the national spotlight.

Those aren’t much in terms of concrete predictions about how this game will go — my bad. Just things for you to be aware of and keep in mind.

This is bound to be a close game. Who wins? Who knows.