Duke No. 69 in Bill Connolly SP+ Rankings
Earlier this week Bill Connolly revealed his rankings on returning production in 2020. This is an important statistic for determining the effectiveness and ceiling for a team heading in to the new season. This morning Connolly plugged all his data together and came up with his 2020 SP+ rankings.
Connolly made his rankings based on three factors: returning production, recruiting results and recent history.
Duke ranked No. 69 out of 120 FBS teams. That’s one spot down from where the Blue Devils finished last season.
Duke’s defense was ranked No. 116, down four spots from last year. The defense moved up two spots in the rankings, to No. 34.
Duke is No. 11 in the ACC, ahead of Boston College, Wake Forest and Syracuse. The Blue Devils were No. 10 at the end of last season. NC State moved past them heading into 2020.
On offense, Duke is last in the ACC, after finishing last season in 13, ahead of Georgia Tech.
The Blue Devils are sixth in the ACC in defense, down from fourth last year. Virginia Tech and Florida State moved past them in the offseason.
Based on the ratings, Duke is expected to favored over one ACC opponent next season—Wake Forest. The Blue Devils are also ranked higher than two of their three FBS foes. (Elon is a FCS team and isn’t listed in the rankings.)
Notre Dame is No. 12, Middle Tennessee 106 and Charlotte 107.
Connolly also ranked FBS teams by the amount of returning production in 2020. Duke was 65 in those rankings, returning 65 percent of its overall 2019 production. The Blue Devils were No. 84 on offense, at 56 percent and No. 41 on defense at 73 percent.
