Duke's History Vs. the Sun Belt and FBS Independents
While Duke has been playing football since 1922, there still plenty of teams that the Blue Devils haven’t gotten around to playing. And many of them play in the Sun Belt Conference.
Duke has played a total of two games against the 10 teams in the Sun Belt. Of the nine teams that Duke hasn’t played, many of them appear to be natural opponents for the Blue Devils. There’s cross-state rival Appalachian State, who beat Duke rival UNC in Chapel Hill last year. There’s also South Alabama, from Duke coach David Cutcliffe’s longtime home state. Duke also has never played neighboring Coastal Carolina or a pair of teams from recruiting hotbed Georgia—Georgia Southern and Georgia State.
Louisiana, UL Monroe, Arkansas State and Texas State have also never crossed paths with the Blue Devils.
The only Sun Belt team with a history against Duke is Troy, also from Cutcliffe’s Alabama home. Duke played a home-and-home against the Trojans, winning at Wallace Wade in 2013 and on the road in 2014 for a 2-0 record against Troy and the entire conference.
Duke has a longer history against current FBS independents. There are still plenty of teams that the Blue Devils haven’t played, including UMass, New Mexico State and Brigham Young. Duke will open its history with Liberty in 2025, playing at home, then finishing a three-game series with a road game in 2026 and a return to Durham in 2027.
Duke has played two independents, posting a combined 16-15-1 record.
The Blue Devils opened the 2018 season with a win over Army, improving their record against the Cadets to 14-11-1. Army upset the Blue Devils the previous season in West Point, nearly derailing Duke’s bowl hopes that season. Duke had won two straight and four of five prior to that.
Duke is scheduled to face Notre Dame six times on future schedules, starting this upcoming season, in South Bend on Halloween, running through a 2035 road game. Duke is 2-4 against the Irish, losing last season at home but winning on the road in 2016.
Tune in for our continuing series on how Duke matches up against the other conferences in football and basketball. If you’ve missed any, you can get caught up here:
Football
Duke’s record vs. the Big 12 7-4
Duke’s record vs. the Pac-12 3-10-1
Duke’s record vs. the AAC 28-30-5
Basketball
