Your 4-0 Duke Blue Devils

Defense, opportunistic offense key 45-17 win over Middle Tennessee State

When does a football game that’s functionally over in the first period take forever to end?

Sound like a Tolkien riddle?

Not really. It’s just a one-sided football game wrapped around an almost two-hour weather delay.  In other words, Duke’s 45-17 win over Middle Tennessee State Saturday afternoon. And evening. And night.

Duke is now 4-0, the state’s last undefeated FBS football program.

Duke was a two-touchdown favorite but you never want to give the home fans a chance to get into it, never want to give the home team a shot of early adrenalin.

Which is just what happened.

Barely a minute into the game Blue Raiders running back Jaiden Creddle went off left tackle. No one from the Duke defense got as much as a fingernail on him. Sixty-six yards later Duke found themselves in a 7-0 hole.

Uh-oh. Was it going to be one of those games?

Not really.

“It was definitely kind of an abnormality,” Duke defensive end Wesley Williams said of that play. “We knew exactly what to fix and once we got it done, we were able to control the run game a lot better.”

Still, a 7-0 deficit was a 7-0 deficit. Would Duke respond?

That would be a big 10-4, good buddy. Maalik Murphy hit a wide-open Nicky Dalmolin for 71 yards on Duke’s second play from scrimmage.

“It felt great,” Dalmolin said. “We had that scripted. We had a plan coming out. Maalik gave me a great ball, the O-line did a great job, everything worked out well and we executed. One thing this team does a great job of is bouncing back from adversity. It’s hard to go down seven-oh on the road but we know what we’ve got to do and what we’re capable of so we just stuck to it and executed.”

“It was a great answer,” Manny Diaz said. “Obviously it was a gut punch to give up a run like that. It was a cheap one. We felt like that’s going to bug everbody because you want to get off to a great start. But for the offense to answer right away was huge.”

Williams said Duke made the necessary adjustments. Did it ever. MTSU wouldn’t find the end zone until long after the outcome had been determined. Duke forced four turnovers, notched six sacks and 12 tackles-for-loss, completely shutting down MTSU’s star receiver Omari Kelly, holding him to 12 yards on four inconsequential receptions.

“I don’t feel like I ever felt his presence,” Diaz noted.

But the big effort was on controlling MTSU quarterback Nick Vattiato, the guy who passed for 456 yards last week against Western Kentucky.