Nate Sheppard broke a 32-yard touchdown run on 2nd-and-14 with 10:42 left in the second quarter Saturday, and less than two minutes later Kevin O'Connor knocked the ball loose from Stanford quarterback Davis Warren, with Kendall Johnson recovering at the Stanford 35. Walker Eget found Jeremiah Hasley for 18 to the 8, then hit Sheppard for a 2-yard touchdown, and Duke led 14-0 in the ACC opener. Duke was a 9.5-point favorite and won by 28, its fifth straight ACC-opener win.
That is a real data point for a roster that ACC media picked 10th in a 17-team league. Manny Diaz is still the head coach, with Jonathan Brewer still calling the offense and Jonathan Patke still running the defense, and three weeks in, the fifth consecutive ACC-opener win suggests the systems are holding up.
What Stanford did not settle is the passing game. Eget went 14-of-24 for 202 yards with a touchdown and an interception on a fourth-and-goal throw from the 2 on Duke's opening drive; Sports Illustrated judged him poised and mostly decisive but short of sharp. Tight end Jeremiah Hasley led the receivers with five catches for 88 yards. Jared Richardson finally caught his first passes as a Blue Devil, three for 44 yards. Javen Nicholas, the other veteran transfer, made his Duke debut and caught one ball for minus-1 yard.
Duke vs. William & Mary, Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET, ACC Extra
The model gives Duke a 99.5% chance to win, which is about as close to a formality as a football game gets.
The two programs have not met since October 8, 1955, when Duke won 47-7 for its only victory in a series William & Mary leads 6-1. That is genuinely strange scheduling trivia, and it is most of what makes this matchup notable on its own terms.
Beyond the trivia, Saturday is the last football Duke plays before the bye. William & Mary has lost two straight, 44-20 at Lehigh, then 52-27 at home to Fordham, which ran for 428 yards, with Yohan-Li Louis averaging 13.5 yards per carry. Coach Mike London said afterward his staff had not made the necessary adjustments. Sheppard against that run defense is not a question worth watching closely.
The receivers are. Eget should get clean pockets and time to throw, and the things to watch are Richardson building on his three catches and Nicholas doing more than his debut produced, because Georgia Tech and North Carolina will not hand out those looks. The same goes for the defensive front. Tyshon Reed Jr. and O'Connor each had two sacks against Stanford, and a line that replaced all four starters needs the habit more than it needs the stat.
The other thing to track is the injury report. Wide receiver Qeanu Johnson and backup quarterback Lawrence Gardner were both ruled out for the Stanford game.
Then Duke is off. The Blue Devils do not play again until October 10 at Georgia Tech, with the Victory Bell game against North Carolina at home on October 17. Get through Saturday healthy, and Duke has three weeks to settle the receiver rotation before North Carolina makes it count.
Wake Forest at Louisville: root for Wake Forest
No. 16 Louisville hosts Wake Forest at noon ET on ESPN, and Duke fans want the upset. Wake Forest wins this about 19% of the time, unlikely enough that you should not build a Saturday around it.
The mechanism is plain conference standings. Louisville is a direct competitor for the two ACC championship game spots, and a loss costs the Cardinals a conference game Duke does not have to play. Duke's title-game odds sit near 14.2% in the branch where Wake Forest wins and near 11.5% in the branch where Louisville holds serve, a 2.7-percentage-point gap between two alternative Saturdays, not a number that moves in sequence.
That is the entire outside slate worth your attention this week.
Full game-by-game detail is in the interactive guide, and the forecasting approach is explained in the methodology.