Duke’s season opened competitive doors. The Blue Devils will face that challenge head-on

Charlotte-When he was hired before last season, Mike Elko embraced all of the challenges inherent in rebuilding Duke football. He talked about not getting out of basketball’s shadow, but leveraging that national brand. He arrived with ambition that would have seemed ludicrous a generation ago, because he could build on the foundation David Cutcliffe left behind. The Duke he knew wasn’t the charity case it once was.
And to start year two, Duke will jump right into the deepest end of the pool.
The Monday night prime-time opener against Clemson is exactly the kind of springboard that can launch Duke to the next level, equal parts opportunity and peril, a Nature Boy game: If you want to be the best, you’ve got to beat the best.
“If we want to get our seat at the table and we want to get talked about in that light, those are the games that we’re going to have to play,” Elko said. “So to be able to play that game in Durham in front of a packed house on Monday night with everybody watching, that’s what you want. I think that’s what our players want. That’s what our kids want, and that’s what our program wants.”
Duke head coach Mike Elko smiles as his team warms up prior to the Blue Devils’ spring football game on Friday, April 21, 2023, at Wallace Wade Stadium in Durham, N.C.
Duke head coach Mike Elko smiles as his team warms up prior to the Blue Devils’ spring football game on Friday, April 21, 2023, at Wallace Wade Stadium in Durham, N.C. Kaitlin McKeown kmckeown@newsobserver.com
It is emblematic in so many ways of what Elko thought Duke could be when he took the job, and the doors his 9-4 debut season opened for the program, and not just with the people at the ACC and ESPN who make the schedule. Throw in that opener with the contract extension Duke announced Monday — with the rare detail from a private school that it runs through 2029, to underline that commitment — and there’s a sense that Duke is really pushing forward, emotionally and financially, just as Elko promised.
And on the field as well. Just as the stars who emerged last season — like quarterback Riley Leonard and quarterback-turned-receiver Jordan Moore — have high ceilings as they learn and grow in their roles, Duke still has a lot of room for growth now that Elko and his staff can start to scheme around the players’ strengths. A year ago, they were just getting to know the roster. Now, they know.
“I think the right way to word it is we can be more targeted in what we’re asking kids to do,” Elko said. “Because we hadn’t played a game with anyone in our locker room last year. And you go in and it’s constantly evolving throughout the year. OK, I’m starting to get a feel for how Brandon Johnson can impact the game. I’m starting to get a feel for what Jaylen Stinson can do. I’m starting to get a feel for how Ja’Mion Franklin functions. And you didn’t have a great pulse on any of that. So now you’re starting to build your structure and scheme from a much greater knowledge of who these kids are and what they can do.”
Of course, there are risks inherent in aiming higher. Cutcliffe tried to make the same leap, much later in his tenure, when Duke opened the 2019 season against Alabama in Atlanta after going to six bowl games in seven years. That team — and Cutcliffe’s regime — never recovered from that 42-3 spanking. The downhill slide that led, circuitously, to Elko, started there. There are still a few players left from that team. They have not forgotten.
And with the ACC abandoning divisions, depriving Duke of its softer spot in the chaos of the Coastal away from Clemson and Florida State, and with Notre Dame on the schedule as well, it’s possible this team could be dramatically better, make tremendous progress, and still end up with a worse record. It might not look that way on paper, but seven wins against this schedule would probably mean more than last year’s nine.
That’s another challenge Duke is facing head-on.
“It’s a way for us to prove to the contrary that last year wasn’t a fluke one-year thing,” Leonard said. “We’re here as a program to stay. Everybody comes back to this place for a reason. Everybody who was eligible to go to the NFL draft came back for a reason.”
They came back for this. All of it. Starting on Labor Day night.