Evanston, Ill.
Many of the mistakes that doomed Duke to just five wins in 23 games over the last two seasons reappeared on Saturday against Northwestern.
Yes, Mike Elko walked away just as frustrated about that as his predecessor, David Cutcliffe, did while seeing his tenure close with a whimper.
Duke committed crippling penalties, four by the defense on third-and-long plays that allowed Northwestern to keep drives going.
The Blue Devils missed assignments on that side of the ball as well and didn’t tackle as well as Elko wanted.
Yet another team surpassed 500 yards of total offense, something seven teams did against Duke last season.
“It was ugly at times,” Elko said Saturday. “It was nice at times. It was really ugly at other times.”
But the Blue Devils mixed in enough of those nice plays, particularly on Northwestern’s final two drives, to beat the Wildcats, 31-23, and walk off Ryan Field smiling and celebrating.
That’s one of the things we learned in college football’s second weekend. The Blue Devils proved resilient at Northwestern, the kind of toughness last season’s string of blowout losses washed away.
Resilience is one thing that returned. The capability of explosive plays on offense were another. The third? It has something to do with adding knowledge about the Blue Devils’ first-time head coach.
First, the defense
After posting a shutout while beating Temple, 30-0, on Sept. 2, Duke displayed far more holes in its defense against Northwestern.
Quarterback Ryan Hilinski threw 60, yes 60!, passes while compiling 435 yards through the air. The Wildcats converted 4 of 6 fourth downs, taking many of the good feelings away from Duke stopping them on 12 of 17 third downs.
“We ran the full gauntlet with our secondary,” Elko said.
Yes, that group recorded two of the three Wildcats turnovers and had 14 pass breakups. But giving up that many passing yards needs to be addressed.
“We had busted coverages at times,” Elko said. “We had too many pass interference penalties. We got way too grabby at times. There’s way too many penalties in the game. So, if you want to talk about a rainbow of emotions for our secondary we hit them all today.”
The defense, even though it allowed Northwestern to run 96 plays, only allowed 23 points. The Wildcats certainly had chances to score more.
Sophomore safety Brandon Johnson made the biggest plays, intercepting a pass and recovering a fumble in the zone on Northwestern’s final two possessions of the game.
When Northwestern’s Evan Hull appeared ready to score a touchdown with 11 seconds left to pull the Wildcats within a successful two-point conversion of forcing overtime, safeties Jaylen Stinson and Darius Joiner hit him to force a fumble at the 1-yard line that Johnson recovered in the end zone.
“I’m just proud of the team staying in it,” Johnson told The News & Observer after the game. “Not giving up, staying focused and locked in. We said at halftime we were gonna have to go out and fight. I’m proud of the team.”
Effective offense
Duke put up 461 yards of offense against Northwestern and showed balance with an effective running game.
Led by running backs Jordan Waters and Jaylen Coleman, Duke ran up 221 rushing yards, averaging a healthy 6.3 yards per attempt.
Waters broke free for a 42-yard touchdown run in the first quarter as part of his 91-yard day on 10 carries. Coleman finished with 83 yards on 11 carries.
That rushing attack, against a Big Ten team, was impressive.
So, too, was Riley Leonard’s passing, particularly early. He hooked up with Eli Pancol on an 81-yard pass play. He and Jalon Calhoun connected on a 51-yard pass play.
Calhoun also had catches for 23 and 18 yards on a day when he caught six passes (on 10 targets) for 108 yards. Pancol added a 25-yard catch to give him 106 yards on his two catches.
All that happened with Duke committing just one turnover — Leonard’s pass that hit off Pancol’s hands and was intercepted in the end zone.
The performance was far from where Elko or Leonard wanted. But it was enough to earn a win.
Analyzing Elko’s late decision
Since he’s a head coach for the first time, working his second game in the big chair on Saturday, Elko is showing his tendencies with each decision.
One of them came in the fourth quarter with Duke up 28-23 and 1:18 to play. Duke faced fourth and goal on the 1. Northwestern had no timeouts remaining.
If Duke scored a touchdown, it would have owned a two-score lead and effectively wrapped up the game.
If Duke tried for the touchdown but failed, Northwestern would have needed to march 99 yards with no timeouts to win the game in the final minute.
Instead, Elko had Charlie Ham kick the short field goal that gave Duke an eight-point lead. In the end, the decision worked but only because Northwestern fumble at the 1 just shy of a touchdown with 11 seconds to play.
But he took losing in regulation off the table by having Ham kick the short field goal.
“I just felt like, at that point, kicking the ball and making them execute a two-minute drive with no timeouts, to even give themselves a chance to tie the game,” Elko said. “And then even if they were able to pull it all off, you know, we were still going in overtime, and we would had a chance to win it there. So I felt like it was the right call.”
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