Duke vs. Virginia
In a conference with Miami, Clemson, Florida State, SMU, Georgia Tech, Pitt, and Louisville, we’re getting exactly the conference championship game we expected with Duke vs. Virginia. Virginia more than earned their spot in the ACC title game as the only 7-1 team in league play. Duke emerged from a five-way tiebreaker at 6-2 to represent the conference in Charlotte, creating a potential disaster for the conference.
A Blue Devils win leaves the extremely realistic possibility that the ACC is kept out of the College Football Playoff. Automatic bids are available to the five highest-ranked conference champs and the five-loss Blue Devils may not outshine James Madison and/or UNLV, as the winner of the American Conference will be the fourth-highest rank champ. A win for the favored Cavaliers simplifies just about everything.
Odds from Circa Sports as of December 3, 3:00 p.m. PT; check out our Circa Betting Splits and DraftKings Betting Splits. Check out our Conference Championship Game College Football Betting Hub.
Duke vs. Virginia (-3.5, 58) Preview
Saturday, 8 p.m. ET (ABC)
Four of Saturday’s five conference championship games are rematches, including this one. But, none of those were as telling or convincing as Virginia’s 34-17 win over Duke. The score is one thing, but the box score is another, as the Cavaliers led 31-3 after three quarters and had a 540-255 edge for the game. They were even -1 in TO margin and still won easily, racking up 5.3 yards per carry and 316 yards through the air.
Duke, meanwhile, ran for just 1.8 yards per carry in front of the Durham crowd and Darian Mensah barely completed half of his passes. One of the Blue Devils’ touchdowns was a pick-six. It was a pretty sound thrashing by Virginia, even with a banged-up Chandler Morris at QB. The sixth-year senior only has a 14/7 TD/INT ratio, but has completed 65.9% of his passes for nearly 2,600 yards.
The Cavaliers offense runs through J’Mari Taylor, whose 207 carries rank 19th in the nation. He gets a lot of tough yards with 4.8 yards per carry and his first carry in this game should put him over 1,000 yards for the season. He also has 14 of the team’s 28 rushing scores. Morris has gotten himself out of trouble with some scrambles, accumulating 4.5 yards per carry on 55 attempts. The thing for UVA is that all of their guys move forward and mostly avoid negative plays. The team’s top nine ball carriers by attempts have all eclipsed 4.1 yards per carry and eight of them have at least 4.5 yards per pop.
Mensah actually has much stronger passing numbers than Morris, posting a 28/4 TD/INT ratio to this point with a 67.5% completion rate. The Tulane transfer is not a runner at all, but he does have Morris doubled in passing TDs, so it’ll be up to the Virginia secondary to keep Duke’s passing attack at bay. Duke’s primary ball carries have all run effectively, as their top three in attempts range from 4.6 to 5.5 yards per carry.
Putting it all together, Virginia is 59th in yards per play with 5.83 and Duke is 30th with 6.28, though it should be pointed out that Virginia has 103 more rushing attempts. Duke does have 5.95 YPP to Virginia’s 5.59 in ACC action.
Offense is only part of the equation, though, and Virginia’s much stronger defensive metrics stand out in a big way here. The Cavaliers come in ranked 28th in yards per play allowed, one of 28 teams surrendering fewer than five yards per play. Duke, meanwhile, has allowed over 6.2 yards per play. Duke has allowed over 1.3 more yards per play to ACC opponents when compared to Virginia’s performance. Both teams have forced 19 turnovers, but Virginia’s been substantially better at limiting big plays.
From an advanced metrics standpoint over at CFB Graphs, Virginia is 32nd in the nation in EPA/play margin offense vs. defense. Duke is 57th. The Duke offense is better, especially with the pass, but the Virginia defense is a top-30 unit and dramatically better than what the Blue Devils bring to the table.
Duke vs. Virginia Prediction
It is rather concerning that a team coached by Manny Diaz has such a terrible defense, but credit to Duke for getting here. Unfortunately for them, and unfortunately for Team Chaos when it comes to the CFP field, this game is just a few weeks after Virginia’s dominant performance on the road. This is a quasi road game in Charlotte, but Virginia seems to be a legitimately good football team and they should take care of business here. Not enough could have changed since these two teams last played and Morris is healthier.
Pick: Virginia -3.5
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