Well, it’s official. It’s no longer “if” Duke goes to a bowl but which bowl will Duke go to.
Duke achieved bowl eligibility with a 38-31 road win over Boston College Friday night. It was far from an artistic masterpiece for the Devils. They took leads of 24-7, 31-14 and 38-21 but let Boston College come uncomfortably close to the comeback, as true freshman quarterback Emmett Morehead overcame a slow start to shred Duke’s porous pass defense to the tune of 330 yards and four touchdown passes.
It says something about the job Mike Elko and his team have done that I can look at a seven-point ACC road win and think that maybe it shouldn’t have been that close. But Duke did throw BC some lifelines. Two defensive pass interference calls in the end zone led to two BC touchdowns. Twice in the second half Duke was a fourth-down stop away from putting the hammer down but twice BC converted, extending drives that ended in the end zone. Duke didn’t commit any turnovers but they didn’t force any either, against a struggling BC offense that has had trouble holding on to the ball. When Duke did get two huge stops in the fourth quarter, the offense couldn’t hold on to the ball long enough to run out the clock.
Those two stops came on sacks, Shaka Heyward on 3rd and 10 with 6:51 left that led to a punt and Darius Joiner on 4th and 4 with 3:50 left held off the Eagles. But the win wasn’t assured until Joiner recovered an onside kick with seconds left.
“I thought they were critical.” Elko said of those two sacks. “We didn’t play well enough on defense for three quarters tonight. But those kids kept battling and went out in the fourth quarter and won us a football game.”
“Those were big-time” defensive tackle DeWayne Carter added. “Our coaches dial up the best blitzes every single week and we just kind of go out and execute. We practice them a thousand times and it’s cool to see them pay off.”
Of course, Duke did lots of things well to jump to those big leads. Riley Leonard went 60 untouched yards on a quarterback keeper to put Duke up 7-0 less than three minutes into the game.
“I was expecting somebody to tackle me but nobody did to I just kept running,” Leonard quipped.
But BC marched back and tied it.
Todd Pelino gave Duke a lead it never relinquished, at 10-7, with a 39-yard field goal. What a story he’s becoming.
Jordan Waters ran it in from seven yards out then Leonard hit Sahmir Hagans from eight yards out and the rout was on.
Until it wasn’t. Morehead drove the Eagles 75 yards in 3:26, hitting Joseph Griffith to make it 24-14, with 50 seconds left in the half.
A defensive off-sides and the second pass interference call smoothed the way for Boston College.
Duke responded coming out of the locker room. Duke’s defense got a three-and-out and Duke went 63 yards in six plays to extend the lead again. Leonard made a couple of big plays to set up a 24-yard Jaquez Moore burst for Duke’s fourth touchdown.
Morehead again showed that he might be something special. He hit Griffin for 26 yards on 4th and 4 and then connected with Zay Flowers for 18 yards and a score.
Was Carter surprised at Morehead’s effectiveness?
“He’s a competitor. Anybody who plays Power-Five football level is a pretty good player to get there in the first place. Hats off to him. He had a heckuva game.”
Duke got its final score early in the fourth quarter on a short Jaquez Moore run. Duke only had to march 50 yards on this drive after walk-on Joe Hardison alertly recovered a surprise on-side kick.
Duke’s last two possessions picked up 19 yards and resulted in two punts.
“They played a loaded box all night,” Elko noted. “They did a really job of adjusting. At the end we were trying to move people and we just weren’t able to get it done.”
But Duke did force BC to use all of its timeouts. Duke limited the home run at the end, forcing Boston College to kick a field goal on second down and try that desperation on-sides kick.
Despite the lack of production in the fourth quarter Duke still ran for 232 yards, with Leonard (96 yards), Moore (82) and Waters (51) accounting for most of it.
“I thought our ability to run the football was critical,” Elko said. “The way we were able to establish the run game, running for over 200 yards again, that was a critical piece of this thing. I thought early on we really came up with some different looks, things that we were able to do to create leverage and I thought we were able to execute a lot of that stuff really well.”
“The offensive line just continues to dominate,” Leonard said. “We had answers for everything they brought us. They tried to load the box and we had the checks to adjust to that every single play.”
And Duke had five sacks, two each by Carter and Joiner and one by Heyward. The latter finished with 11 tackles.
Duke needed every one of those sacks, every tough yard, even left tackle Graham Barton recovering a Leonard fumble deep in Duke territory. But they got them, just enough, using the hoariest of football cliches and making a few more plays than the other team.
Leonard and Carter said there’s more to come.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Carter said. “It’s even cooler that we have three games left and a lot of work to do.”
Leonard said “that’s what we’ve been expecting. We expect to win a lot more. Six was there bare minimum. We’re going to win out from here. That’s the plan.”
So, we’ll all have to amend our holiday schedules to account for something few outside that Duke locker room thought possible two months ago, a Duke bowl game.
Two thumbs up.
Great to get that 6th win but I'm somewhat concerned about the secondary defense. I'm just glad the BC quarterback came out a little nervous. After he settled down, he almost brought them back. Our running game was terrific, and our OL keeps opening holes for our runners. I am a little worried about Riley's health with the way he gets pounded at times. Now let's beat VT and get #7
GoDuke!
Duke leaned on the running game as Leonard didn’t have lots of time when he dropped back to pass. I’m a little concerned with running back health. Terry Moore limped off the field after one carry, Jordan Waters did not play late in the game and, once again, Jaylen Coleman did not play.