Duke football's second fall scrimmage.

Duke football gets nearer to season opener

Well, one question seems to have been answered.

Duke football had its second fall scrimmage Sunday afternoon. The Blue Devils used four quarterbacks. In alphabetical order, they are Henry Belin IV, Ty Lenhart, Riley Leonard and Gavin Spurrier.

Jordan Moore? He made all of his appearances at wide receiver, where he seems to have joined Luca Diamont in the quarterback-turned-receiver cohort.

And he did make some nice catches. We saw enough of Moore last season and this spring to know that’s he’s pretty dangerous if he has the ball in space and this could be a good way to get him the ball in space.

The four other guys still standing? Belin is a true freshman who did not play spring ball. Spurrier is a walk-on who has barely played at Duke. Lenhart played a lot at Columbia but he’s in a whole different league at Duke, figuratively and literally.

Offensive coordinator and quarterback coach Kevin Johns has good things to say about Belin.

“I think he’s shown phenomenal upside and promise. He sees the field extremely well. He has a very good football IQ. Usually as a freshman there comes a point where you hit a wall and just can’t handle anymore mentally and he just hasn’t done that yet.”

But he’s still a freshman.

Leonard is a sophomore. He backed up Gunnar Holmberg last season and even got one start, when Holmberg was out with an injury.

I think you can connect the dots here.

What does Leonard bring to the table. Eli Pancol is a senior wide receiver who is working on his fourth starting quarterback at Duke.

Pancol says that Leonard throws a catchable ball and adds “We work on timing all the time and just try to execute the best we can. He’s very dynamic. He’s got a great arm. He can run. He’s an athlete, a phenomenal basketball player. He opens up the field for us.  They [opposing defenses] can’t just drop back all the time because they have to worry about him running the ball. At the same time, we try to get as much space as we can but if we don’t, he’s going to put a dot on it.”

About Leonard’s basketball career. The 6-4 Leonard was first-team all-state in Alabama, where he lit up social media with his dunking ability.

Whoever starts at quarterback should benefit from a deep and experienced receiver group. Pancol has 47 career receptions at Duke. Classmate Jalon Calhoun has 141 career catches and is poised to move up in a bunch of career lists at Duke. Darrell Harding, Jr. is a third senior and he has 32 catches at Duke.

In other words, Calhoun, Harding and Pancol aren’t just seniors, they are seniors who have seen a lot of ACC action.

Then we have juniors Jontavis Robertson and Malik Bowen-Sim, freshmen Jaden Watkins and Mehki Wall and the two converted quarterbacks.

Pancol said that his group is “competing for spots every day. I can’t take a play off.”

Offensive co-ordinator Kevin Johns suggests Duke may have room for all or most of these guys to see the field.

“I think we’re at six to seven that we feel pretty confident with. We need to have six or seven because we’re going to play at a fast pace. The ones (first team) are going to get tired and you need to put some fresh legs out there.”

Pancol says that’s fine by him.

“There’s no drop-off. You go out there and run full speed. If you’re tired you tap your head and the next guy goes out there and there’s no drop off. They run full speed and make the next play. The defense can’t do anything about it. They get tired, the next guy goes in and we’re not tired and boom.”

A good offensive line should be another security blanket for a new quarterback.

Especially a good left tackle, one who can protect that famous blind side.

Graham Barton is a junior and he’s been starting at left tackle since early in his freshman season.  He might be Duke’s best NFL prospect.

He says he’s more than ready to be that security blanket.

“As a left tackle you definitely feel a responsibility to keep those guys clean, to keep those guys safe. Having young guys back there you definitely want to give them the most time possible, to give them time to make decisions, to go through their reads.”

Johns says he expects to use seven, maybe eight offensive linemen.

The running game is still a work in progress. That’s partly because Mataeo Durant was so good last season that Duke’s other running backs were glued to the bench.

Back in the spring Johns said he wanted a “bell-cow” at running back.

He’s back-tracked since then.

“I think that we have phenomenal depth. I don’t know that there’s one guy that’s ready to take the lead like Duke had a year ago. I like what we have in that room. I think that every day we’re giving guys a chance to show what they can do. Instead of having one bell cow I think we have three or four that we can roll out there and keep each other fresh and try to wear defenses down.”

For the record the backs in contention to be one of the bell cows include Jaylen Coleman, Jacquez Moore, Jordan Waters and Eric Weatherly.

Moore didn’t hurt his cause with a touchdown run in the 60-yard range Sunday. I qualify that because I didn’t actually see it because we were being escorted from the sideline to the media tower and that move involved elevators.

Waters has 305 career rushing yards at Duke, tops in that group by a large margin.

What else can I report about the scrimmage?

Well, Belin had touchdown passes to Hagans and tight end Matt Smith, Leonard had one to tight end Nicky Dalmolin and another to Pancol, Charlie Ham missed at least two field goals the day after Elko told the media that Ham was kicking better than he ever had and there seemed to be an awful lot of penalties.

And the defense did have its moments. Linebacker Dorian Mausi was all over the field and Duke’s defensive backs are much more aggressively in-your-face than last year’s group, which seemed to prioritize not getting beat deep over stopping short passes.

Perhaps the best news from a defensive perspective is that the number of missed tackles is way down. Again, with a zero-sum scrimmage, maybe that just means Duke’s backs and receivers aren’t good enough to make people miss. But Duke has prioritized tackling and it seems to be paying off.

The students are back and defensive tackle DeWayne Carter says that reinforces the message that time is getting short before rehearsals are over.

“Camp always has that point like ‘the season is actually here.’ Instead of waking up feeling like a zombie every day, going into practice and back to the hotel, we’re now seeing people on campus, people are excited, people are starting to ask you questions. It gets you more excited.”