Kickoff: Saturday, September 5 at 2:30 PM CT
Location: Wallace Wade Stadium
TV: ACC Network
DraftKings line (Aug. 30): DUKE -9.5
Over/under: 50.5

The setup

Tulane’s 34-27 win last season snapped Duke’s three-game winning streak and tied the all-time series 3-3. Duke now hosts Tulane for the first time since 2014.

Personnel snapshot

• Tulane: Will Hall enters Year 1 as head coach. 5 starters return—2 on offense and 3 on defense. Key defenders back include Chris Rodgers and E’zaiah Shine. Tulane’s defense allowed 384.2 yards and 23.9 points per game last season.
• Tulane quarterback: Tulane has named Zeon Chriss-Gremillion its starter. Last season at Houston, he threw for 108 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT.
• Duke: Manny Diaz enters Year 3 as head coach. 8 starters return—4 on offense and 4 on defense. Key defenders back include Luke Mergott, Landan Callahan, and Kimari Robinson. Duke’s defense allowed 424.2 yards and 29.4 points per game last season.
• Duke quarterback: Walker Eget is projected to start for Duke. Last season at San José St, he threw for 3,047 yards, 17 TD and 9 INT.

Three quick analysis points

• The opener trend: Duke has won four straight season openers, including a 28-7 upset of No. 8 Clemson. Opening day has become one of the program’s most reliable games, regardless of the logo across from it.
• The recent trend: The Blue Devils just posted consecutive nine-win seasons for the first time in school history. A program founded in 1888 needed 137 years to stack those two seasons together.
• Pressure changed everything for Walker Eget: Walker Eget while at San Jose State completed 35.4% of his passes under pressure last season at 4.3 yards per attempt, with 2 TD and 4 INT (4.0% of throws). From a clean pocket: 65.8%, 8.8 yards per attempt, 15 TD and 5 INT (1.7%). Tulane’s pass rush ranked No. 17 in PFF’s 2025 FBS team grades. In plain terms: make him speed up, and the game changes.

Prediction

I make final predictions on my TikTok/YouTube/Instagram/Facebook pages @uthinkuknowsports.

Full disclosure: I use AI tools to format my research into an article encompassing all of the information.