I’ve often quoted the football cliche that a quarterback gets too much credit when his team wins and too much blame when it doesn’t.
And it’s still difficult to give Riley Leonard too much credit for Duke’s come-from-behind 34-31 win over Wake Forest.
“Our quarterback is special,” Mike Elko said. “He’s had a special year. He’s a special competitor.”
All week long one of the narratives of Duke’s Senior Day was Leonard against Wake’s marvelous quarterback Sam Hartman. I’ve always thought that was a curious way to look at things because Hartman and Leonard weren’t actually going to be on the field at the same time.
But it sure made sense tonight. Hartman kept putting Duke in the position where Duke had to score.
Leonard met the challenge. He answered with his arm and his legs and his heart.
Leonard drove Duke 65 yards for the go-ahead touchdown Saturday night against Wake Forest minutes after having another potential go-ahead score called back. And then a battered Duke defense got the stop it needed, a Darius Joiner interception and Duke upset the Deacons.
The win ended Duke’s regular season at 8-4, 5-3 in the ACC, with a bowl bid awaiting, a sentence that would have seemed impossible four months ago.
Duke opened with an eight-minute drive that culminated with a 43-yard Todd Pelino field goal.
A second-down sack on Leonard blunted the drive but Duke picked up enough on third down to get into range for Pelino.
Duke would end the game with almost 37 minutes of possession.
Elko said that was a point of emphasis going into the contest.
“We looked at how our best [chance] to win was going to be. We didn’t call the game conservatively. We knew we were going to have to throw it. We wanted to milk the running clock whenever it was available for us to do that. We wanted to limit possessions. It was all calculated.”
But Hartman is pretty good, good enough to answer right away, converting a third and six and a third and eight on Wake’s first possession. Justice Ellison ran it in on third and two from the Duke six and the Deacons led 7-3.
Duke responded with a big third-down conversion of its own when Leonard connected with Sahmir Hagans on a short crossing route for a 30-yard score on third and seven.
Less than a minutes into the second period Duke led 10-7. An intentional grounding call on Hartman derailed Wake’s next drive and they punted to the Duke 20.
The Blue Devils marched down the field in five plays, the final 46 coming on a Leonard strike to Jalon Calhoun down the right sideline.
Calhoun ended the game with 11 catches for 174 yards.
At this point Leonard was 11 for 11 for 164 yards.
Hartman’s turn. Nine plays, 75 yards, another touchdown on third down, this one to Donavon Greene from the eight.
17-14 Duke.
Duke finally came up empty, punted and watched as Hartman drove the Deacons down field one more time before intermission. But this time Duke got the third-down stop on a Jaylen Stinson break-up.
Matthew Dennis tied the game at 17 with 1:50 left in the half.
Duke answered with a drive of their own, this one ending in a 32-yard field goal by Pelino, with 14 seconds left in the half.
Five Duke possessions, four by Wake--excluding the kneel-down. Two punts, no turnovers, four touchdowns, three field goals. Leonard 17 for 22 for 219 yards, Hartman 13 for 18 for 197 yards.
A 20-17 halftime lead for Duke and one big question. Would either defense step up in the second half?
They did. For a while, anyway. Duke got a couple of stops, Wake got one. Leonard hit Jordan Moore from 30 yards out and Duke led 27-17.
Then Duke faced big-time adversity. Again
Duke let a huge opportunity slip by on Wake’s next drive when linebacker Cam Dillon dropped a would-be interception inside the Duke 10. Of course, the Deacons scored on the next play, Hartman to Taylor Morin for 17 yards, again on third down.
This was Duke’s second almost forced turnover of the period, the first when a fumble call was overturned into an incomplete pass call.
Duke’s next drive stalled when a pass interference call against Wake was overturned.
And then Hartman did Hartman things, converting two more third downs before hitting A.T. Perry from the six to put Wake up 31-27, with 12:31 left, Wake’s first lead since 7-3.
Leonard scrambled 34 yards for an apparent TD but Graham Barton was flagged for a hold. A fourth down pass to the end zone came to nothing as Wake defender Jermal Martin out-wrestled Calhoun for the jump ball.
Wake’s chance to put it away.
They didn’t. Elko said Duke did its best to sow some confusion in Hartman’s mind. Duke frequently lined up with three presumptive pass rushers but made some changes.
“The majority of the game we rushed four. There was a fourth guy added a lot. We just felt if we gave him a vanilla picture, he would slice us apart and he still did at times. But we just felt like we had to make it look a little bit different for him and give him some looks he hadn’t seen and try make him a little bit uncomfortable and we were able to get just enough stops to win the game.”
The first of those stops came with Duke down 31-27 and holding on.
Wake picked up one first down but DeWayne Carter sacked Hartman on third and two and forced the punt.
Now, Wake only had the ball for 23 minutes or so. But they went hurry-up a lot and called almost 50 pass plays. That was an exhausted Carter who got the sack.
“It’s just about wanting to win,” Carter said. “Not caring about yourself. That’s how we built this culture.”
Duke got the ball back down by four, out of timeouts, a field goal meaning nothing. A roughing-the-passer call helped, putting the ball at midfield.
Minutes after not winning that jump ball at the goal line, Calhoun picked up 30 on a pass.
“They made a play,” he said. “We went out and kept going, stayed locked in, stayed focused.”
Duke went back to a jump ball from the Wake 20, this time to Hagans and this time Duke won.
“I got the play call from the sideline,” he said. “On that play it’s basically ‘you gotta win.’ That play is designed to score. I ran the route, we got the coverage we were looking for and Riley gave me a great throw.”
“Whether something bad happens or something good happens, we’re going to come back,” Leonard said of the comeback. “Nothing changes in our mentality.”
Wake got the ball back with three timeouts left and just over two minutes left, a field goal waiting to tie.
One completion picked up a first down but three incompletions brought up fourth down. Hartman took a shot down field but Darius Joiner came up with the ball.
It still wasn’t over. The Deacs still had those three timeouts. After a short run Duke rolled the dice a threw the ball. Leonard hit Hagans for the first down and Duke ran out the clock.
“We were thinking we were going to run it,” Hagans said. “But they gave us a pass option and Riley gave me a strike.”
Leonard’s take?
“Whenever you have that situation and they call that play, that means a lot to me. For them to show they have confidence in me and Sahmir to run a great rout and catch the ball, that means a lot.”
Leonard ended with 29 of 41 for 391 yards and four touchdowns and he did it with an injury-depleted receiving corps, missing Eli Pancol and tight end Nicky Dalmolin. All but two of his passing yards came from Calhoun, Hagans (8 catches, 139 yards) and Jordan Moore (8 catches, 76 yards). And Duke rushed for a modest 116 yards. Duke ran a ball-control offense with short passes.
“When you play a good team like that, you’ve kind of got to take what the defense gives you,” Leonard said. “That’s something I’ve learned as a quarterback throughout the year. When you have to check the ball down, you have to check the ball down. We had a great game plan, found some holes in their defense and executed.”
“Our kids just keep fighting,” Elko said. “They will not blink and they will not stop coming.”
Next stop? TBD. But there will be a next stop.
Magical evening in Wallace Wade Stadium. I walked out with a huge smile on my face.
Great write-up after a great game. We are so proud of our team and our coach!