Duke Football went up against the two teams that will likely face off in the ACC Championship Game in back-to-back weeks, and hung tough with both SMU and Miami for at least three quarters of each game. The contests will go down in the loss column for the Blue Devils, but looking at the entirety of the game it’s clear that the expected dropoff after the coaching change this past offseason is nowhere near as severe as many outside the program anticipated.
Now, eleven weeks in to the season and fresh off losing two consecutive games regardless of how well the team played, will be the testing ground for how much this group of players is able to rally around each other and regain their winning ways from earlier in the year. The offense has picked up steam in those last two games after hitting a lull in the middle of the year, putting up an average of 29 points. More than that, they looked much more at ease and capable of moving the ball down the field even in non-scoring drives (despite not being able to score on any of the eight turnovers the defense generated).
Speaking of the defense, that’s going to be the unit that carries this year’s team to where it needs to go. They ran up against the two best offenses in the country the last two weeks, and made both struggle for much of each game. It’s a positive sign going in to Saturday’s game against the Wolfpack’s offense, who have found a new gear under freshman quarterback CJ Bailey the past two weeks. How much of NC State’s offensive success was due to their level of competition, against wayward ACC newcomers Cal and Stanford, remains to be seen, and there’s no doubt Jonathan Patke and Manny Diaz will throw multiple looks at Bailey to try and get him off schedule…