Duke. Wake Forest. Football.
Is that a thing?
Well, maybe it is. And if it isn’t, maybe it should be.
Let’s go to the scorecard. Same conference, same state, 75 miles apart, down an interstate or two.
Both private schools. The people who do this sort of thing generally rank Duke as an academic top-10 school nationally, Wake Forest top-30. Wake Forest has the smallest undergraduate enrollment of any Power-Five school. Duke is pretty close.
And they’ve played each other every year beginning in 1967, every year but one beginning in 1944. For some reason they missed 1966.
In other words, Duke and Wake Forest seem like peer schools, more so than Duke and North Carolina or Wake Forest and NC State in many respects. More like Vanderbilt or Northwestern or Tulane or Rice.
Or Notre Dame?
Hmm.
Before coming to Duke by way of Texas A&M Mike Elko had stints as an assistant coach at Notre Dame and at Wake Forest. He’s had nothing but nice things to say about Wake coach Dave Clawson, his boss from 2014 through 2016.
Which brings us to Elko’s introductory press conference as Duke’s new coach, last December. Someone--not me--asked Elko a perfectly reasonable question. Would he model his Duke program after that of Wake Forest?
His response was that Notre Dame was a better template because Duke and Notre Dame were national brands and Wake Forest was not.
“I think we’ll pull more off my Notre Dame experience than we will the [Wake Forest] because I just think Duke means something anywhere you go across the country. And ir means an awful lot in terms of excellence. So, I just think there’s a lot more opportunity for us to go out there and find a balance and not necessarily fall into this law of we have to be developmental.”
That was almost a year ago and I haven’t seen any response to that from Clawson and for all I know it was water off a duck’s back. Or maybe Wake likes being reminded of its small-school, underdog status.
But a rational response could be something along the lines of, “hey Mike, put us in your rear-view mirror after you beat us a few times.”
Which Duke will have a chance to do this Saturday afternoon-moving-into-night.
Which Wake team will show up? Or perhaps more importantly, which Sam Hartman will show up. Remember Wake started the season 6-1. They beat Florida State. Their overtime loss to Clemson was one of the best ACC games in recent memory. They reached no. 10 in the AP poll and Hartman was being hyped as a legitimate Heisman candidate.
Then Louisville happened. Eight turnovers worth of Louisville, including three Hartman picks.
Louisville won 48-21. Wake followed with losses to NC State and UNC. Competitive losses to be sure but losses nonetheless.
Duke knows all about competitive losses. They still sting.
Wake’s season was teetering on a knife’s edge when they fell behind Syracuse 21-10 in the first half last week.
But Hartman brought them back from the brink. He was Heisman-level Hartman, 30 for 43 for 331 yards, four touchdowns, no picks.
Wake is more than just Hartman, of course. Wide receiver A.T. Perry is one of the nation’s best. At 6-5, 205 pounds, he’s a match-up nightmare. The Deacs can run the ball. Think platoon running backs. They are second in the ACC in total offense, second in passing yardage, with a veteran quarterback who shredded Duke last year to the tune of 402 passing yards, 61 rushing yards and five total touchdowns.
You can connect the dots. Duke cannot let Hartman control the game.
Sam just plays at an extremely high level,” Elko said Monday. “He sees the field really well and can make every throw. He throws the ball all over the place and has been doing it for years and is just a tough gritty competitor, that just finds ways to will that team to win. They are extremely talented on the outside. A lot of big, tall talented wide receivers who have been extremely productive. Two dynamic slots that go out there and can really make plays. An extremely experienced offensive line that knows how to run that system really well and is extremely effective doing it. They just roll through tailbacks, who are very comfortable, very physical runners who are capable of making explosives. Offensively this group is extremely dynamic.”
How to stop this team?
Stick with the basics, says Duke tackle DeWayne Carter. That starts with making Hartman uncomfortable.
“Any quarterback that you put pressure on a lot of times they’ll get uncomfortable and that’s our goal as a D-line. We want to make the quarterback uncomfortable in the pocket. So we’ll trust the game plan the coaches come up with and go from there.”
Wake’s unique mesh offense?
“You just can’t rush things. It’s important to do your job. You can’t rush your assignment. Maybe you see something out of the corner of your eye and the second you jump out of your gap, it ends up hurting you.”
It also would help if Duke can sustain some drives and thus keep Hartman and company off the field.
“It just comes down to efficiency,” according to Duke quarterback Riley Leonard. “Each play, stay ahead of the chains, whether it’s a three-or four-yard gain, a complete pass and then execute on third down especially. As quarterback my emphasis this week is controlling the game and controlling each snap and moving the chains.”
Duke did not run the ball well last week at Pittsburgh. A repeat means three-and-outs, which means Sam Hartman and A.T. Perry on the field a lot.
What went wrong with the run game?
“We weren't able to win our space the way we needed to in order to create the runs that we needed to,” Elko said.
Pitt does have the best run defense in the ACC and there’s a chance Duke can get co-captain Jacob Monk back from injury this week, which certainly would help Duke win their space against the Deacons.
This will be Duke’s last home game, thus Senior Day. Many of these seniors are mulling whether to use their bonus COVID season next year and many of those conversations have not yet taken place. Elko said that players introduced as seniors may not necessarily have made up their minds and still could return, while players not introduced as seniors likely have decided to return, although again there’s some wiggle room.
“I don't ever want a kid to go through this program and never have a chance to get recognized as a senior. There will be some guys on the field that will be back and there are some guys on the field who won't be back. I think you can feel comfortable saying that anybody who is not on the field, at least their intention at the moment is to come back.”
Clear enough?
But between that pregame introduction and those post-game discussions to come, there’s a football game to be won and Duke is going to need all of its focus and energy and efficiency to win it against a talented team in a game that really might be a thing.
Looking at Devils and Deacs
Another great story Jim- you’re the best! I hope you and the team get the support they deserve. I loved Elko’s stating that Duke is a bigger name than Wake and Notre Dame is the model. Now it’s time for the Devils to go out and prove it!
-George Williams
If Duke can get the running game going, that will help our offense and it will help the defense as well. A tired defense makes mistakes and will more than likely spell defeat. I'm hoping the OL controls the line of scrimmage this Saturday.
GoDuke!