Who ESPN Predicts Will Win Saturday Showdown Between Duke and Illinois

The second week of the 2026 college football season is officially here and it should be another exciting one. As teams hit the field for another week, a sneaky good non-conference game will take place in Illinois. 

Duke heads to Champaign for a battle with Illinois on Saturday as both teams enter the game 1-0 for Week 2. Illinois is fresh off a win over UAB on Thursday and a few days later the Blue Devils beat Tulane 17-3 to open up their season. 

Now, the two teams face off as one will remain unbeaten and carry some momentum into Week 3. 

With just a few days until Saturday's kickoff, ESPN is making their prediction for who will win. And there's bad news for the Blue Devils.

Per ESPN's predictor, they give Illinois a 61.4 percent chance to win the game compared to Duke's 38.6 percent. After the Blue Devils were favorites against Tulane, they now enter this game as an underdog, and Vegas agrees.

The latest Vegas odds have the Fighting Illini as a six-point favorite for the game, and generally the home team gets three points. While Illinois is still unranked, they are a tough team and it will be a tough place to play for the Blue Devils.

For Duke, they may need to lean on running back Nate Sheppard once again as he's coming off a big performance against Tulane, rushing for 227 yards and two touchdowns in the game. Meanwhile, their passing game struggled as Walker Eget went 13-of-26 for just 131 yards. But even with that, Manny Diaz is confident that the pass game will turn it around. 

This game is also a rematch of last season's matchup in Durham where Illinois blew out the Blue Devils 45-19. Illinois was ranked No. 11 at the time and used a big performance from quarterback Luke Altmyer. The hope is that Duke can get some revenge this season and earn a big road win.

Duke and Illinois are set to kickoff at 3:30 p.m. ET with the game to be broadcast live on Fox Sports 1.