Game Analysis

DUKE (-3)  26   NC State  19

I’d Lean with Duke at -2.5, which could become available later if Leonard is downgraded from doubtful to out.

Duke QB Riley Leonard has been downgraded to doubtful to play with his injured ankle. The coaching staff is really high on Henry Belin as a passer and he’s completed 13 of 14 career passes for 161 yards in mop up duty in his career. I don’t think the pass game will suffer much, if at all, but Leonard’s running will be missed. Leonard has run for 344 yards on 44 runs and Belin has not shown that he’s a runner (4 runs for 3 yards). Taking Leonard’s rushing out of Duke’s offense equates to 4.0 points.

The math still likes Duke in this game because of their strong defense, which has given up more than 14 points to only Notre Dame (21 points) and has been 1.2 yards per play better than average. NC State’s offense is better with MJ Morris at quarterback because Brennan Armstrong was so bad (1.4 yards per pass play worse than an average FBS QB), but Morris is a slightly below average quarterback and the Wolfpack ground game has been terrible (4.3 yprp against teams that would allow 5.1 yprp to an average team).