Duke blows out Elon in season opener, 45-17

Walking into Wallace Wade stadium at the illustrious non-Ivy League, Ivy League Duke University for opening night of the college 2025 Football season, felt more like an early to mid-October type of game between Duke and Elon. From start to finish, the Blue Devils were the aggressive team with throwing the ball through the air. Darian Mensah had one heck of game, throwing for 389 yards, 3 touchdowns and was very accurate with hitting his receivers on deep passes. We can sit and talk about the Blue Devils' offense, which put up 45 on Elon, but their defense held Landen Clark in check.

Duke went into a 3-4 zone, which had Clark in a 'spin" cycle, trying to figure out what defender was dropping out of a soft coverage or what player was going to blitz. He finished the game with 101 yards. Now, I know, it is the first game of the season and teams are trying to find their identity, but it looks like Duke has an identity with being more of a pass first type of team in the first half and will hit the ground and pound on you in the second half. It will be very interesting to see how they will fare with the bigger dogs in the conference, later in the season.