Duke hosts Tulane. The market has Duke favored by 7.5.
What’s at stake
Duke
- Duke sits at 2% to make the CFP field — 2% with a win here, 1% with a loss.
- Duke is the program whose football team plays in Wallace Wade Stadium while the school's identity stays with Cameron Indoor — and whose patience with that asymmetry just brought a competitive era under Mike Elko.
Tulane
- Tulane sits at 4% to make the CFP field — 6% with a win here, 3% with a loss.
- Tulane is the New Orleans private university whose 1925 Sugar Bowl founding + Willie Fritz 2022 12-2 Cotton Bowl championship + Yulman Stadium urban-campus identity define what historic-southern-football looks like.
The series
The series is tied 3-3
6 meetings since 1964 · Tulane won the last meeting
- 2025Tulane 34–27
- 2015Duke 37–7
- 2014Duke 47–13
- 2011Duke 48–27
- 1973Tulane 24–17
Face-off
What each fanbase carries into this one.
Tulane
The chip · vs big brotherAcross town and up the road sits LSU, the SEC giant that swallowed all of Louisiana's football oxygen after Tulane walked away from the conference. Fans believe the state forgot the Green Wave existed — and that crashing the Playoff was the loudest possible way to remind everyone New Orleans has a team of its own.
What this game touches
Talent that keeps leaving as soon as it works. Tulane finally got good again — a 2022 Cotton Bowl run, an 11-3 2025, back-to-back AAC titles — but the success keeps walking out the door: Willie Fritz left for Houston, then Jon Sumrall left for Florida the moment he reached the Playoff, forcing Tulane to promote Will Hall and start the cycle again.
Duke
The chip · vs the national mediaFans hear the same backhand every fall — that Duke is a basketball school whose football is a curiosity, that the academic standard caps the ceiling. They point at the 2025 ACC trophy and ask the talking heads to say it again.
What this game touches
The decades of being the ACC's easy week. Before Diaz, Duke football spent most of the 2000s and 2010s as the conference's scheduled win — David Cutcliffe stole a Coastal title or two, but the program lived as the basketball school's polite second sport. The fear underneath the 2025 title: that a thin academic-first program can't keep this up once the league adjusts.
Best players
Duke
- Luke Mergott (LB) · 2025: 91 tackles
- Caleb Weaver (S) · 2025: 89 tackles
- DaShawn Stone (S) · 2025: 86 tackles
Tulane
- Chris Rodgers (LB) · 2025: 80 tackles
- Jack Tchienchou (S) · 2025: 80 tackles
- Jake Retzlaff (QB) · 2025: 3,168 passing yards — Heisman odds: 64th (+20000)
What to watch
The total has moved down 3.0 points since opening (53.5 → 50.5).
The line, and the room
Duke fans are feeling it more than most fanbases this week (62nd percentile) — the mood matches the numbers.
- Model · 60%
- Market · 73%
- Duke fans · 62nd
- Tulane fans · 20th
Home −7.5 · O/U 50.5
Conditions
93°F · 6 mph wind · Cloudy
Duke is 59% at home, 41% on the road since 2018 (29-20 home, 18-26 away).