“It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t pretty at all.”
That’s not what you want to hear from your head coach after a game.
Mike Elko was talking about his offensive line but he could have been talking about any part of an offense that now has gone seven quarters without a touchdown.
Duke was never in it.
That’s the first time I’ve had to write that about Duke football since Elko took over. Duke fell behind 14-0 after Louisville’s first two possessions and never seriously threatened to get back into the game.
Elko, defensive tackle Ja’Mion Franklin and wide receiver Jordan Moore all used the word “flat” in post-game interviews to describe how the game began for Duke. Louisville’s Jawhar Jordan (163 rushing yards) staked his claim as the ACC’s best running back by slicing and dicing Duke’s defense on Louisville’s first two drives, 72 yards for a touchdown and 49 yards for a touchdown, the second TD drive a short field set up when Duke couldn’t convert a fourth-and-one when Riley Leonard was sacked.
How do you come out flat for a game between two top-20 teams, a game with significant conference implications?
Elko said it was on him. Franklin said “I don’t know. It was weird. I really can’t put my foot on it.” Moore said “sometimes things happen. Just one of those days. No excuses.”
The defense settled down after that first period, holding the Cardinals to three field goals, one after they took over at the Duke 15 following a turnover.
“We just got back to our roots,” Franklin said. “We calmed down, we started communicating effectively. Once we settled in, started communicating, started playing our brand, that’s when we kept them out of the end zone.”
So maybe the defense gave the offense a chance to get Duke back in the game.
But the offense wasn’t remotely up to the challenge. Riley Leonard got the start at quarterback but Duke played the entire game without star left tackle Graham Barton and then lost Jacob Monk to an injury.
“Obviously it’s a factor,” Elko acknowledged. “You certainly don’t want to play without your two best players on the offensive line. But we’ve talked a lot since I’ve been here that our job is to have the next guy ready to go and today I didn’t do that.
“We didn’t make enough plays blocking, there was pressure all night, we couldn’t get the run game going at all, we couldn’t convert third-and-short-or fourth-and ones and then we started holding and grabbing.”
Duke was penalized 10 times for 82 yards. Duke rushed for 51 yards.
Duke’s offense was just a Murphy’s Law kind of day, dropped passes, overthrown passes, penalties, a big overturned call, runners slipping and sliding.
One play summed it up for me. Technically, it wasn’t a play at all.
Duke trailed 17-0 at intermission. Louisville got the ball to begin the third quarter and kept the ball for over seven minutes before adding three more points to their lead.
First play after the kickoff, Duke’s first play of the second half; Duke lined up ready to snap the ball with just under 20 seconds on the play clock. Leonard saw something he didn’t like, adjusted the call, got back with plenty of time to run the play and eventually handed it off for a yard up the middle.
But the play clock had expired. Delay of game.
A snapshot of an offense completely out of sync.
“Everything we tried, we didn’t try the right things, because none of it worked,” Elko said.
There’s an axiom that when things aren’t going well, go back to the basics.
Jordan Moore (six catches, 92 yards) said he agrees with the premise and defined those basics as “do exactly what our coaches tell us to do. Go on to the next. We’ll get it figured out.”
Duke doesn’t have long. A struggling Wake Forest team comes to town Thursday night, a chance for Duke to break out of the slide, become bowl eligible and finish the season strong.
But work has to be done. Quality work.
Ugly game but I refuse to overreact. Injures are starting to take a toll.
Glad there is a baseball game to watch tonight. And a “next play” attitude heading into Thursday.