The past few years for Duke Football of been some of the best in school history under head coach David Cutcliffe, as the team has finished back-to-back seasons with 9+ wins and three consecutive bowl games for the first time ever. Cutcliffe, however, is not satisfied with the program staying where it is now that Duke is beginning to establish itself as a winning program. He hopes to be able to compete against some of the best competition by scheduling harder non-conference opponents for the Blue Devils in the near future.
The last two seasons Duke has gone 8-0 in non-conference regular season games, but those are coming against FCS teams NC Central and Elon as well as weaker Division I programs Troy (twice), Memphis, Navy, Kansas, and Tulane, with the Navy Midshipmen as the only FBS team finishing with a winning record by the end of the season (9-4 in 2013).