Duke headed to Sun Bowl
Duke’s bowl destination at least has them headed somewhere warm — and west.
The Blue Devils will play in the Sun Bowl on Dec. 31, the ACC announced Sunday afternoon. The reported opponent for the Blue Devils is Arizona State, per On3’s Brett McMurphy.
So, it’s a New Year’s Eve bowl for a Duke team that less than 24 hours ago was making a case to be in the College Football Playoff. The Blue Devils went 8-5 this season but seven of those wins were against power-conference teams; Saturday night’s 27-20 overtime win against Virginia gave Duke its first outright ACC title since 1962.
But earlier Sunday, it was announced — as expected, given the penultimate CFP rankings earlier in the week — that James Madison, the Sun Belt champion, received the final auto-bid. It left the ACC champion out of the CFP, though Miami making it as the No. 10 seed means the league wasn’t shut out of the CFP.
The matchup against Arizona State is a rematch of the last time Duke played in the Sun Bowl. That was a 2014 game, won by Arizona State 36-31. That’s the only time Duke and Arizona State have met on the football field.
Arizona State went 8-4 this season. The Wildcats’ highlight was dealing Texas Tech its only loss, 26-22 in mid-October, with a touchdown in the final minute.
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