A great way to end a great season?
Check.
A great way to kick off a successful 2023?
Remains to be seen. But for a young Duke team Wednesday’s 30-13 win over Central Florida in the Military Bowl is a validation of everything Mike Elko has accomplished in the year since he was announced as Duke’s head football coach.
Duke won the game doing well what they did well most of the season. Duke forced the game’s only two turnovers. The Blue Devils dominated both lines of scrimmage, sacking John Rhys Plumlee six times. On the other side of the ball Duke rushed for 177 yards. Duke had a nine-minute advantage in time of possession.
And Riley Leonard? What more can we say about the sophomore break-out star? Leonard rushed for a team-high 63 yards and two touchdowns, while completing 19 of 29 passes (65 percent) for 173 yards.
His counterpart certainly flashed some signs of the explosiveness Duke feared. But Plumlee fumbled three times--losing one-threw a late interception in the end zone and was only partially successful in escaping a ferocious Duke pass rush.
“I think we did a really good job of keeping him contained,” Elko said. “We had a lot of guys spying him at different times and then a lot of the sacks came from that. We knew keeping him contained and controlled was going to be key to not allow him to get out and be explosive and for the most part I think we were able to do that today.”
Duke never trailed. The teams exchanged first-quarter TD drives, Duke marching nine plays in 87 yards, UCF matching with a 14-play, 75-yard drive.
It was 7-7 after the first quarter.
And then Duke took over. The Blue Devils got two good breaks and one bad break on a bizarre go-ahead drive. Jalon Calhoun lost a fumble after a long pass/run but was ruled to have stepped out of bounds prior to the fumble. Then a roughing-the-passer call on third down kept the drive alive. But an apparent touchdown pass to Jordan Moore was ruled incomplete and Todd Pelino put Duke up with a 22-yard field goal.
The decisive separation came in the next few minutes. At the end of a 15-yard run to the Duke 42 Brandon Johnson forced a Plumlee fumble, which was recovered by Darius Joiner.
Duke quickly marched back to the UCF end zone. A 32-yard pass from Leonard to running back Jaquez Moore set up a TD sneak by Leonard.
It got worse for the Knights. A three-and-out used up only 40 seconds, leaving Duke enough time for a career-long 48-yard Pelino field goal on the final play of the opening half.
It was 20-7 at intermission.
“I think playing and finishing halves is critical,” Elko said. “The end of a half and the start are usually huge momentum swings. We were able to get the score to go up 17-7, which was obviously really big and for the defense to go and get a three and out, I thought that was huge and then we were able to execute the two minute drive and then Todd Pelino goes out and bangs a 47 yard [officially 48] field goal into the wind going into halftime so I thought the momentum of that was really huge and then to go up by 16 early in the second half, I thought that changed how the game was played.”
Remember this was against a UCF team that came into the game averaging 34.4 points per game.
Duke got the ball first in the second half and kept the ball for almost seven minutes before adding another field goal, the only points scored in the third period.
The Knights made it interesting early in the fourth quarter, converting a fourth-and-two, then hitting a shot downfield, then setting up a TD with a trick-play pass to Plumlee.
But UCF went to the trick-play well one time too many times and Duke stuffed the critical two-point conversion, leaving the score 23-13, two possessions.
Duke got a short field after stopping UCF on 4th down and finished the scoring with Leonard’s second short TD run. Chandler Rivers ended the Knights’ last-ditch attempt with an interception in the end zone.
“We only scored 13 points,” losing coach Gus Malzahn lamented. “It’s all of us. We just didn’t get it done offensively.”
Some other factors stand out. Duke was penalized one time, for five yards. No turnovers and five penalty yards is about as clean as it gets.
“I think it shows that during the prep they were focused when they needed to be,” Elko told the media. “They’re a really mature group and I think they had their sights set on what they wanted to accomplish all year.”
And about that transfer portal. Transfers Cam Dillon (nine tackles, two sacks), Darius Joiner (seven tackles, one fumble recovery) and Datrone Young (five tackles) keyed a Duke defense that played without star linebacker Shaka Hayward, who had a tonsillectomy earlier in the week.
And much of that offensive line came to Duke through the portal.
Duke’s three rushing touchdowns gave them 31 on the season, breaking the old record of 29 set in an 11-game 1954 season. The Blue Devils also ended the season plus 16 in turnover differential, another stunning turnaround in a season of stunning turnarounds.
Duke ends the season 9-4. And speaking on stunning, Duke now has won its last four bowl games, after a span of over a half-century between bowl wins.
“Couldn’t be more proud of this group,” Elko summed up. “From where this team was and the program was walking off the field at the end of the 2021 season to walking off the field today as the 2022 Military Bowl champions. Nobody can understand the amount of work and the amount of character that went into that. This is not a day and age where people grind through hard times, where people stay and stick together. Everybody in our organization that ended the season showed up here today to be a part of this bowl, every coach and player and you don’t see that. This group is special and this program is special.”
Thanks for the great football coverage all season, Jim.
The team played great yesterday. My wife commented to me about the lack of penalties.
The Duke crowd was enthusiastic. There were more Duke fans in Annapolis than at a typical home game.
Great article, Jim! Man, was this fun! The decisive W, yes, but to my eyes it was one of the best all around games that Duke has played this year. Five yards in penalties, 0 turnovers. 2 take-aways. Cam Dillon, Joiner, our RBs. our Lines -- wow.
And Riley Leonard? You ask, albeit rhetorically, "What more can we say about the sophomore break-out star?" Well, if you're asking me, I'd say he reminds me just a teensy bit of Daniel Jones. :-)