It got cold overnight in the Triangle. Blustery, drizzly, stay-in-bed-an-extra 10 minutes weather.
Football weather. And it will be November the next time Duke takes the field. The month where college football decides things.
Duke is 5-3, with four games left, all winnable but considering how the ACC in going this season perhaps none guaranteed wins.
Duke needs one win to achieve bowl eligibility. Could Duke finish 5-7? Not likely. Then again that first quarter last Saturday at Louisville sticks out like a sore thumb.
Or Duke could run the table, go 9-3, win the mythical state championship and get the best bowl bid it’s had since 2013.
It’s all up for grabs.
“It’s intense,” Jalon Calhoun told the media Tuesday. “We’ve got to finish. Everybody remembers everybody in November. Bowl-game wise, there’s a lot on the line.”
Duke needs to fix the mistakes that doomed them last Saturday and they need to fix them quick, with a quick turnaround to Wake Forest on Thursday night. It’s also a quick turnaround for the Deacs and they got mauled pretty badly by Florida State.
But Wake Forest didn’t have to travel and Duke did. Mike Elko said Duke got back around 11:30 Saturday night and was back at work 3 P.M. Sunday looking at film.
Elko said Duke’s offense was “completely dysfunctional at every level” against Louisville. “We didn’t block, we didn’t hit our targets in the run game, we didn’t do a good job of staying on schedule because we committed way too many penalties, we were inefficient again in the passing game.”
Ouch.
Elko said nobody’s completely healthy after eight games but specified that Riley Leonard, Graham Barton, Jacob Monk and Myles Jones are all likely to be game-time decisions.
These are four of Duke’s best players and all could benefit from the extra days of rehab they won’t get with that Thursday kickoff.
“A race against the clock for all our injured guys,” Elko said.
Elko also acknowledged that quarterback Henry Belin IV has been battling a shoulder issue much of the season.
“He was a warrior for us.” Against NC State and Florida State games, “he was probably more injured than Riley was. He could move and run and do those type things. But if you say what percentage was his shoulder, it was probably 60, 70 percent.”
Elko also gave a glimpse into how the sausage is made.
“It doesn’t benefit us to get up here and let the whole world know all of the things that are going on inside our program. Lots of people make snap judgments, watching games and watching kids play and a lot of times there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes. So, maybe giving the kids some benefit of the doubt once in awhile might help the kids.”
Could it be Grayson Loftis time?
“He’s progressing. He’s getting lots of reps. He kind of moved off the scout team after the UConn game so he’s been getting reps consistently since then. I think he’ll be ready if needed.”
But Duke’s problems against Louisville hardly start or end with the quarterback position.
Defensive back Al Blades, Jr. said Duke needs to get back to the basics.
“It starts with our practice habits. We’re attacking practice one day at a time and coming into it with the mindset of just being better. When you face adversity like this you’ve got to turn the notch up, you’ve got to focus.”
Better communication is essential.
“That’s one of the keys to football,” Blades said. “As the game went on, we got comfortable and got locked in more. We can’t afford to come out slow, we can’t afford to come out not locked in, we can’t afford to come out not playing our best. We’ve got to play our best Duke football.”
Blades added that he expects better.
“A lot of guys are hungry. These guys are together. They’re glued together, Our whole team, there’s no shaking our culture. We’re always picking the next guy up.”
Calhoun is a fifth-year senior, a co-captain. He says he’s a quiet, lead-by-example type but isn’t afraid to become proactive when he sees something he doesn’t like.
“We need more energy and it starts right here in practice. We have to start, early, locked in on the details, knowing what we have to do. The seniors, all the leaders, it’s more of a top-down thing that’s going on. It’s us showing by example.
“Speaking on the receivers side, if it’s little route details, stuff like that, I will come up and have a little conversation if a route doesn’t look right, if we’re not doing something a certain way or if the team standards aren’t being met, I’ll definitely come up to a young guy and say something.”
Elko and his staff have worked hard to instill a culture of hard work and accountability and we’ll see if that culture holds up against hard times.
“When you’re struggling the answer is to believe in who you are, believe in what you’re doing, simplify, go back to your fundamentals and just improve,” Elko says. “People always think that there is this huge sweeping answers and there’s not. We’re in a bit of a rut but we’ve also been a very efficient, very effective offense for the better part of my tenure here and I have all the confidence in the world that we’re going to get that thing turned in the right direction.
“We’re competitors and we’re in a two-game losing streak and there’s some disappointment. But you can’t lose sight of the big thing. We’ve still played four ranked teams. We’ve played two ranked teams in a row on the road. I don’t know that anyone around here feels as though the bottom is falling out or anything. We played two really talented teams and we didn’t get the job done. But we still believe in who we are and what we’re doing.”
"It got cold overnight in the Triangle. Blustery, drizzly, stay-in-bed-an-extra 10 minutes weather." One reason I love to read your articles! It takes me back to the sportswriters of the roaring print media days like Red Smith, Shirley Povich et al. who didn't just throw facts and numbers at their readers.
Hoping the Devils get healthy and back on track.
I like Elko's attitude, and it seems to motivate this team well. So hoping for better results on Thursday. Thanks for the update on Belin -- injured shoulder says a lot. Two tough loses, so we'll find out a lot about our team's character on Thursday night. I'm confident they'll respond in the right way. As always, Jim, thanks for your excellent reporting. Agree with Bob's comment -- I love the personal touch in your writing!!