Duke football has made it a habit of playing in bowl games, reaching four straight under the reins of Mike Elko and now Manny Diaz. In fact, the Blue Devils have won three of those contests, including capping off an ACC championship last season with a 42-39 victory over Arizona State in the Sun Bowl.
While preseason projections haven’t been kind to Diaz and his team for several reasons, with quarterback Darian Mensah transferring to Miami at the top of them, the chances of the Blue Devils reaching a fifth straight bowl game for the first time in program history are high.
ESPN’s Kyle Bonagura and Mark Schlabach recently released their predictions for every bowl game following the 2026 season. While both have the Blue Devils playing in the postseason,
the opponents and locations differ.
Bonagura has Diaz’s squad playing early in bowl season on Friday, Dec. 18, in the Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl, held in Tampa, Fla., at Raymond James Stadium. The ESPN scribe predicts the Blue Devils to face off against the Big Ten’s Wisconsin, who are still trying to find their footing in Luke Fickell’s third season in charge after finishing 4-8 last season.
For Schlabach, Duke will have much more time to prepare for its bowl game, as he has the Blue Devils playing on Tuesday, Dec. 29, in the JLab Birmingham Bowl. The opponent? Auburn, which would have a distinct home-field advantage, with campus being just a bit more than 100 miles away and so many alumni and fans in the Birmingham metro area. (Full disclosure: I’m an Auburn alum, so this would be an awesome matchup for me.)
Either way, Duke will look to continue building on its bowl season success in Diaz’s third season in Durham.
This article originally appeared on Duke Wire: ESPN's bowl projections has Duke facing powers from Big Ten, SEC
