Walker Eget makes his first Duke start today against Tulane
Walker Eget gets his first start behind center today as Duke opens its ACC title defense against Tulane, with an overhauled secondary out for revenge and a 9.5-point line already up.
Eget takes the show on the road today, and Diaz calls it Duke's identity
Manny Diaz ended the summer-long competition on August 25 by naming sixth-year transfer Walker Eget his starter over redshirt freshman Dan Mahan, and his explanation has only gotten bigger since. At first it was matter-of-fact — "it was just about consistency," the trait Diaz wanted "from an older guy... day after day," per 247Sports — but by this week's press conference it had turned into a mission statement: "There's just a knowing, so it just makes sense. It's a question answered," per Yahoo Sports. Eget arrives off a 2025 season at San Jose State that produced 3,051 passing yards and 17 touchdowns, though a late-season knee injury required surgery and he spent much of fall camp still working in a brace, per SI.
Want a shot at the first @WalkerEget game-worn jersey? 👀 Bid now: t.co/MONj5LoHng
He is not walking into a finished product. Duke returns just 10 starters off last year's ACC championship team, having lost 17, though it keeps 1,000-yard rusher Nate Sheppard in the backfield and linebacker Luke Mergott anchoring the defense, per Yahoo Sports. The receiver room has its own new answer too — Jared Richardson emerged as the clear winner of that battle over Jayden Moore and Jonah Burton on the first depth chart, giving Eget at least one settled target as he makes his debut.
The program has treated the whole thing like a coronation. "Want a shot at the first @WalkerEget game-worn jersey?" Duke's own account posted this week, auctioning the shirt for charity before its new starter has taken a snap in Wallace Wade Stadium — the kind of confidence Diaz spent all of camp building toward.
The corners get their revenge shot, and Tulane arrives without half its answers
This is the rematch Duke has been circling since last September, when Tulane raced to a 24-3 lead and beat the Blue Devils 34-27 in Durham behind a school-record 4 rushing touchdowns from then-quarterback Jake Retzlaff against a secondary that finished the year among the worst in the country against the pass, per ESPN. Diaz spent this camp rebuilding that group from the ground up, and the new depth chart lists Western Kentucky transfer Dylan Flowers or Landan Callahan at one corner, Montana transfer Kyon Loud at the other, Andrew Pellicciotta at free safety and DaShawn Stone at rover.
Tulane is not the same team that did the damage last year, either. Jon Sumrall left for Florida and new coach Will Hall inherits a fifth-year quarterback in Zeon Chriss-Gremillion and an offensive line that lost 4 starters, including all-conference pieces Shadre Hurst and Derrick Graham, leaving right guard Elijah Baker as the lone returning starter up front. The Green Wave will also be without their best skill-position weapon: preseason All-AAC running back Jamauri McClure, who rushed for 540 yards and 2 touchdowns last season, will sit out with a foot injury, as Jamauri McClure Out for Tulane's Sept. 5 Opener at Duke covered this week — the hope is he's back within a week or two.
Duke's account has been building up one name in particular ahead of kickoff — "Three days 😤 @landan_callahan" — and today is where the corner Diaz is trusting to fix last year's mistake gets his answer against a Tulane passing game trying to replace its own losses on the fly.
Last season ended on a 42-39 Sun Bowl classic, and the title defense starts today
Duke's last game was a survive-it classic, a 42-39 win over Arizona State in the Sun Bowl on December 31, capping the program's first outright ACC championship since 1962. The Blue Devils closed last season on a four-game run — a November 15 loss to Virginia, then wins over North Carolina (32-25), Wake Forest (49-32), a Virginia rematch (27-20) and the Sun Bowl shootout.
It was the kind of finish that got other locker rooms talking, and not always kindly toward the committee. SMU coach Rhett Lashlee congratulated Duke on the title but added, "When you win the ACC, they should have been in the playoffs instead of a team from the Sun Belt. Hopefully that doesn't happen again." That's the standard this year's roster inherits, with a brand-new quarterback taking the first snap of the defense today.
Duke opens as a 9.5-point favorite as the title defense kicks off
Duke hosts Tulane this afternoon at 2:30 PM, and the line opened with the Blue Devils favored by 9.5 with the total set at 52.5 — a number that reads more middling than a statement given how much both sides are replacing behind their starting quarterbacks. Tulane arrives off a 41-10 loss at Ole Miss to close out last season and has not played a game yet this year, same as Duke.
Both teams are debuting new coordinators' worth of turnover at once — a first-time starter under center for Duke, a new head coach and a reshuffled offensive line for Tulane — which is exactly the kind of opener where the number on the board matters less than whether either quarterback plays it safe. Kickoff is this afternoon, and it's the first real look at what both of these programs actually are.