Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\nBarghouti defended the level of defense Eget faced throughout his career, as San Jose State didn\u2019t necessarily square off against the Ohio State defense every week.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can say it\u2019s a Mountain West defense, but it\u2019s still a college football defense,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Barghouti also complimented Eget\u2019s toughness and leadership. The veteran quarterback played through a lower-body injury for much of the 2025 season and continued to leave it all on the field for his school.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the players loved him,\u201d Barghouti said. \u201cNothing but praise for Walker, and definitely with his toughness, that gained all the respect from the coaching staff and the players.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barghouti also talked about Eget\u2019s progression last year despite battling injury. He said that the quarterback lacked confidence in the pocket to start the season, but that it was an area he improved in as the season progressed.<\/p>\n
Eget threw nine picks a season ago, and Barghouti said his confidence would diminish whenever those turnovers occurred. Barghouti emphasised that Eget prides himself on limiting turnovers, something Duke head coach Manny Diaz said was a big part of selecting a starter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So seeing Eget struggle a little bit with turnovers, while dealing with nagging injuries, is something that Barghouti said derailed his confidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s one thing to look for is, how will he react after one pick,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s really what we saw after that injury throughout the season. We just saw him throw a pick and just lose confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Due to the nature of Eget\u2019s injury, fans might be justifiably eager to see if the veteran QB can flash some mobility against the superior athletes that the ACC offers compared to the Mountain West players Eget competed against his whole career.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Barghouti noted that while Eget\u2019s mobility was never elite, he was severely hindered by injury; he was forced to move around a lot last season due to inconsistent offensive line play.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe actually did get a bit mobile towards the end [of the season],\u201d he said. \u201cHe would move out of the pocket a bit more, extend his legs as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barghouti also said that he was interested to see if designed runs might be implemented when and if Eget is fully healthy at Duke.<\/p>\n
He assessed Eget\u2019s career as a whole and talked about how the San Jose State offense became \u201cmuch more explosive\u201d after he took the reins in 2024. Barghouti said that Eget\u2019s coaching staff grew to trust the gunslinger more and more as that \u201824 season progressed.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe could definitely throw the ball, and with Duke, with a better offense, it\u2019s definitely going to be interesting to see what he can do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aug. 25, 2026, 12:25 p.m. ET Duke has named transfer Walker Eget as its new starting quarterback.Eget transferred…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[243,88,90,89,138308,175649,13081,378,5727,5725,1350,261,138311,74116,9411,1345,5722,1349,32753,9202,377,3064,246],"class_list":["post-443253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-accessfree","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-sourceduke-wire","tag-sstssportscollegedukefootball","tag-sstsnfootball","tag-tagamerican-football","tag-tagbig-10-hub","tag-tagbig-ten-conference-football","tag-tagcollege-sports","tag-tagcolleges-universities","tag-tagduke-blue-devils","tag-tagduke-blue-devils-football","tag-tagncaa","tag-tagncaa-mountain-west-conference","tag-tagohio-state-buckeyes-football","tag-tagoverall-positive","tag-tagsan-jose-state-spartans","tag-tagsan-jose-state-spartans-football","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tagstory-highlights-ai-enabled","tag-typestory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}