Duke's Record Against the Big 12

Blue Devils have had success against southwest powers

On September 25, 2021, Duke will host Kansas in the start of a home-and-home football series that concludes the following September in Lawrence, Kansas.

It will be Duke’s second home-and-home with the Jayhawks in just over a decade and continue a sporadic but surprisingly successful football history between the Blue Devils and the Big 12 Conference.

Duke is 7-4 all time against current Big 12 teams. Five of them—half the conference—have never played the Blue Devils. That list will get shorter by decade’s end, as Duke has scheduled a home-and-home with TCU starting in 2028. The other four teams never to play Duke are Texas, Iowa State, Kansas State and Oklahoma State.

Two other Big 12 teams have beaten Duke in bowl games in their only meetings with the Blue Devils. Oklahoma won the Orange Bowl following the 1957 season, beating the 6-2-2 Blue Devils, 48-21 to cap a 10-1 year.

Texas Tech sent Steve Spurrier out on a losing note, beating the Ole’ Ball Coach’s last Duke team before he left for Florida, 49-21, in the All-American Bowl following the 1989 season.

Kansas also won its initial matchup with Duke, beating the Blue Devils in Lawrence in 2009, 44-16. The Jayhawks traveled to Duke five years later and paid the price, as Charlie Weis’ Kansas team was pounded, 41-3.

Duke has dominated the final two Big 12 squads. The Blue Devils are undefeated in three games against Baylor, winning 12-7 at Wallace Wade in 1958, then sweeping a home-and-home in 2017 and 2018, by a combined score of 74-47.

West Virginia wasn’t yet a Big 12 team any of the four times the Mountaineers have crossed paths with Duke, but the Blue Devils have posted a 3-1 mark against WVU. Duke opened the 1966 season with a 34-15 win, then swept a home-and-home in 1970 and 1971, 21-13 and 31-15. West Virginia posted a win in the most recent meeting, 20-18 in West Virginia in 1985.

We’ll have Duke’s records against the other Division I conferences over the next few days.