So, here we are Duke fans. Three games, three wins. Duke hasn’t even trailed this season. Riley Leonard is slinging the ball like a young Ben Bennett and running the ball like, well, his teammates say he runs like a giraffe. But giraffes can run up to 35 miles per hour.
Sounds like a compliment to me.
Leonard is in charge of a quick-strike offense that has five receivers with at least one catch of 35 yards or more and a running back with a 42-yard score. Duke has won the turnover battle three times, has threats returning both kickoffs and punts and is even getting a handful of votes in at least one poll.
Duke takes that 3-0 record to Lawrence, Kansas this weekend to play the historically woeful Kansas Jayhawks. You know, the team that went 2-10 last season, 0-9 the year before, the team that lost to Duke 52-33 last season, the team that hasn’t won more than three games since 2009.
That woeful program.
Well, a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. Kansas got good. Maybe real good. Good enough to bring their own 3-0 record to Saturday’s match, good enough to be a 10-point or so favorite. Good enough to have already beaten West Virginia and Houston.
What happened?
Well, Lance Leipold happened. Leipold came to Kansas from Buffalo, the university not the NFL team. He actually got Buffalo into the AP poll.
Leipold’s teams run the ball. Often and well. Quarterback Jalon Daniels is a true dual-threat quarterback. Through three games he has completed 67 percent of his passes and rushed for 237 yards. He’s averaging almost nine yards per carry and has thrown seven touchdown passes, against one interception. Kansas alternates Devin Neal and Daniel Hinshaw at running back and they both are averaging around seven yards per carry.
Kansas has averaged 53 points per game, third in the country.
Yikes.
Mike Elko gave his take Monday afternoon.
“They’ve been able to run the ball really well. They’ve got a tremendous dual-threat quarterback and what they’re doing on offense is extremely challenging.”
It certainly starts with Daniels, who didn’t play in last season’s Duke-Kansas game.
“It’s obviously a challenge. Any time you have a dual-threat quarterback it makes it a lot harder. His ability to run designed quarterback runs, run read plays, throw the ball-and he throws the ball exceptionally well. He’s not only a runner and even when they are throwing it, he’s still a run threat. He has the ability to pull the ball down and make something out of nothing. And they’ve got weapons around him.”
Kansas is one of the nation’s leaders in third-down conversions and Elko again credits Daniels.
“One of the biggest things is that they are able to run the ball at a little bit longer yardage, which limits your package a little bit. They do some different things with him back there and when they do get him in throw situations, you’re always limited when a quarterback can beat you with his feet.”
In other words, Duke is likely going to have to score some points to come out on top. But West Virginia scored 42 points on Kansas, Houston 30. So, it can be done.
Elko says Duke will do what Duke does on offense.
“I want to score, however we have to go about scoring. We’re going to play offense in a way that allows us to score. I don’t think we’re playing excessively up-tempo. I think we control the clock when necessary but we can play tempo when we need to.”
Duke hasn’t had to face a deficit this year but Elko said he has no doubt that his team will respond when it faces that situation.
“Our kids are extremely competitive. They are very well trained for what’s in front of them this season. It hasn’t happened yet but I certainly anticipate it will and we will show tremendous fight and represent Duke very well.”
Elko has said that winning the turnover battle and winning special teams are the first two keys to victory. Duke will have plenty of chances to force and recover fumbles against a team that runs as often as Kansas and Duke is coming off a spectacular special-teams effort. And Elko said that Charlie Ham has been perfect in practice over the last several weeks.
But the key may just be Duke being itself.
“I told them this today and I truly mean this. There are no big games. There’s only the next game. You trust in your preparation, you trust in what you do, you trust in the work you’ve put it. You prepare the right way and go out and execute. That’s football and that’s the mindset we want.”
This is by far Duke's biggest test of the season. To go there and beat an undefeated Kansas crew would be an eye-opener for College football fans.
Coach Elko says there are no big games only the next game. Another way to look at it is every game is a big game. In my mind, Kansas is a big game.