Five To Ponder: Duke

But also, his run support, because his title was safety but he kinda played a 'bandit' position, a hybrid linebacker/safety/pass rusher guy. He was just that versatile a guy that they could play in the run and pass.

They don't really have that guy this year. They're basically having to tweak that a little bit and not have a guy who can be quite the force against the run.

They're running a 4-2-5 defense and coach

Another guy, he's actually been there. He'll be a sophomore this season but this will be his first real opportunity to get some playing time, tight end

This is his first opportunity to come play. His role kinda got increased a little bit with Blair Holiday's injury that ended his football career. They'll have to have someone else catch the football and Braxton has been a guy the Duke staff really feels like could play.

He maybe got in the game a couple of times last year and did some special teams work, but in terms of his presence on the team, he's pretty much a newcomer.

What you will see is something he's done a little in the past. His big thing for this year is making sure he has his best players on the field, no matter what position. If there's a No. 2 quarterback, but 12th best player on offense, he's gonna put him on the field.

He's got two quarterbacks who can do that and he's gonna play them at wide receiver, tight end, running back. That's probably the one thing you'll see a lot of different things from last year.

There will be a lot of guys playing multiple positions, on offense in particular and he's not gonna be afraid to do some out of the box things, especially in the passing game. There's even cases where it's not out of the question to have three quarterbacks on the field at one time. You'll see some innovation there.

Defensively, there's no real difference in schemes. This will be their second year in the 4-2-5, so you may see some wrinkles here and there with a year of experience. But you'll see mostly the same as last year. Their hope is to have a little more presence in being able to rush the passer and be able to put some blitz packages in.

Another guy, recently injured and not sure how long he'll be out, but

Also, there's the return of

I think how they start the season will determine what's realistic for them. If they lose that first game, against Florida International like they did Richmond last year, it could really carry over and impact guys.

If they win that game, they'll have a tough second game against Stanford, but you could say there's a possibility they could go to a bowl game. They could hit that magic number of wins, but realistically it's gonna be difficult to do because the ACC has gotten better. They can get close, maybe a game away and that's the realistic notion.