Duke Blue Devils at Illinois Fighting Illini — result and pick review
Result
✗ Pick wrongIllinois Fighting Illini 27, Duke Blue Devils 31
Our pick missed: Illinois Fighting Illini lost 27-31. We had them at 68%, and it stays on the record.
Illinois Fighting Illini, 68% to win. We project them by 7.8.
The numbers
| Our pick | Illinois Fighting Illini |
| Chance they win | 68% |
| Our projected spread (Illinois Fighting Illini) | -7.8 |
| Our projected score (Illinois Fighting Illini first) | 31-23 |
| Projected total | 54.6 |
The win probability is the graded call. The projected spread, score and total come from the same model, and they beat a naive baseline in every season we tested. A spread reads here as it does anywhere else: -11 means we project that side to win by eleven. These are our numbers, not a market’s — the market consensus is shown separately, and labelled, wherever we have it.
Market average
| Spread (Illinois Fighting Illini) | -6 |
| Total | 51.5 |
The market’s numbers, not ours: an average across the books our data provider covers, for context beside the projections above. We don’t guarantee its accuracy or timeliness, and nothing here is a price you can transact at.
Prediction published Sep 6, 2026, 3:02 PM UTC
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Frequently asked questions
- Who won Duke vs Illinois?
- Duke Blue Devils won 31-27. Maiden picked Illinois Fighting Illini at 68% to win, published before kickoff, so the call missed. Either way it stays on our public record.
- Where does the Duke vs Illinois win probability come from?
- We fit power ratings to eleven seasons of college football results, blend them with published efficiency ratings and recruiting talent, and adjust for home advantage, with Illinois Fighting Illini hosting Duke Blue Devils. The win-probability model is checked against more than six thousand out-of-sample games. No sportsbook line goes into it, and none appears on this page.
- Is this betting advice?
- No. Maiden publishes a win probability on every pick and grades every one of them in public, so there is a record to check rather than a claim to take on trust. We never tell anyone what to back or how much, and no outcome is guaranteed.
Maiden publishes predictions, not bets.