Taking Care of Business.
There’s an old Jim Belushi movie by that title. And a Bachman-Turner Overdrive classic.
And the 2023 Duke football team. Duke’s 41-7 demolition of Connecticut Saturday afternoon--the Huskies scored in the final 20 seconds--is what a really good football team does to a lesser team. Take care of business.
I don’t want to get too far into this without acknowledging that Connecticut isn’t very good. But it’s equally obvious that Duke helped make them look that way. Sure the home team dropped to 0-4 but nobody has made them look this feckless, not even ACC rival NC State, which eked out a 24-14 win over Connecticut to open the season.
We’ve all heard the talk since Duke opened with that epic win over Clemson. Duke was going to get lazy, get careless, overlook somebody, anybody, get caught looking ahead.
Nope.
“I told the guys in the locker room, proud of the way we came here and handled our business,” Mike Elko told the media. “I thought we played a mature game. You know, we're not naive to all the talk that's out there right now. And I thought we stayed focused and handled the task at hand the way we needed to.”
Letting an underdog hang around is the best way to give them hope of an upset and Duke didn’t let UConn hang around very long. Duke had some very clear game plans and they executed them at a high level.
On offense Duke knew that Connecticut defended the run well, the pass not so well.
“That was their strength, their ability to load the box, stop the run,” Elko said. “And they really played defense that way. And I think that front six is extremely talented. I said that all week and again, that's not to say that we don't have to run the football against talented front sixes but we certainly had a lot of respect for that group. And so we felt like our strength was a little bit more within the throw game and so we knew that was going to be a part of it.”
Duke came up empty on its first drive but marched 44 yards on five plays to take a 7-0 lead the second time they took possession. Riley Leonard connected with Sahmir Hagans and Jordan Moore, with a targeting call thrown in for good measure, to move to the home team’s seven. Jordan Waters took it to the one, then scored.
Leonard ended the game hitting 23 of 34 for 248 yards.
On the other end of the field Duke’s defense simply smothered Connecticut’s offense, Duke’s defensive line first among equals.
Elko’s take.
‘They run a little bit of a different style of play. They're a very stretch-oriented team and when teams commit to that play, it's a little bit different and how you defend it and how you set edges on it and how you fit, that is a real challenge sometimes. I think they've been able to rip off a few explosive runs in the early part of the season on that play and having some success getting that going.
“I thought we handled that really well. I thought for the most part with the exception of the one in the start of the third quarter, we really bottled up that play. We felt like that was going to be the key, our defensive line’s ability to create penetration and get them behind the chains. And we were able to do that and then make the kind of a young quarterback who hasn't played a lot of football execute on third and long situations and that's what we wanted to do.”
UConn’s first-half offense went punt, punt, punt, lost fumble, punt, punt, punt.
The fumble was especially costly. After Todd Pelino’s career-best 50-yard field goal put Duke up 10-0, the Huskies botched a routine pitch, which was recovered by Nick Morris at their 10. Jordan Waters took it in one play.
Duke extended the halftime lead to 27-0 with another TD drive and a Pelino field goal as time expired.
Elko was especially pleased that Duke came away with points on the two-minute drive to end the half, the Blue Devils marching 38 yards in 34 seconds to set up Pelino.
“We've spent an awful lot of time in our program in practice on two minutes, so those kids are really, really comfortable in that situation. We've had quite a few of those. I think we've had three of them already this year where we've been able to get down yeah, that was the first time we actually finished it.”
The weather deteriorated in the second half. Each team missed a makeable field goal but Elko said the wind was a major factor. DeWayne Carter extended Duke’s lead with a scoop-and-score and Duke started playing some backups, lots of backups to be honest.
But there was still one offensive highlight left, when Leonard hit Jordan Moore for a 22-yard TD late in the third. To say Moore was open is an understatement. There wasn’t a defender within 10 yards.
“That was an RPO,” Moore said of the play call “but Riley and I are always on the same page. So when we saw that look, we kind of just improvised. It definitely was really weird to see no one around me but it's hard to score in college football so I'll take any anytime.”
It was 41-0 after three and most of Duke’s regulars sat out the final 15, resting up for more competitive games. It was nice to see running back Jaylen Coleman get his first snaps of the season.
UConn kept most of their regulars in for a final drive against defenders who wouldn’t be on Duke’s depth chart if Duke had a depth chart. But it’s hard to blame Jim Mora. He’s got a young quarterback and maybe that final 83-yard drive that almost doubled their total offense will pay off down the line.
As for Duke, well they’re 4-0 and nobody is going to worry about them overlooking Notre Dame or Florida State or North Carolina or Pitt or the other teams that populate the final two-thirds of the regular season.
But the first third of the season could hardly have gone any better. Not many people are wondering how Duke can get to six wins and bowl eligibility anymore. The narrative has changed from “look at Duke’s schedule” to “Duke is the team no one wants to see on their schedule.”
A good tune-up for ND, and a nice win on the road. I LOVED that the announcers treated us as a legit top-20 team and not a fluke. Our offense is balanced and our D has given up very few explosive plays. Kicking game is solid, special teams overall are pretty good. Coaching is top flight.
LGD!! Go to Hell, Carolina!
I have to confess to watching less than 100% of snaps in this game, and I'm grateful on a day like today to have that luxury.
Road games have a way of pointing out flaws that haven't surfaced at home, especially for an OL, and I think that room will be sharper next week. I'm just glad we held serve, got the starters some extra rest, and, hopefully, will enter the ND week relatively healthy.
The ND game became vastly more intriguing when the Gameday announcement was followed sooner after by ND losing to OSU in an almost unthinkable manner, playing the last 2 snaps with 10 defenders on the field. Marcus Freeman and his relatively young coaching staff will face a steep test to move past such an egregious error and refocus on Duke, but they'll have plenty of motivation.