True level of Duke's 2015 Football Team

[duke09hms]

A lot has been made of the loss* to Miami on "The Play" and it's supposed psychological effects that crushed the souls and minds of our powerful Duke football team, causing us to go from 6-1 to 6-5. A three game losing streak since that lateral play. However, I'd argue that the Duke coaching staff and players aren't that weak, and we have merely been found out as the season has progressed and the level of competition has risen. We were merely an average team all along that feasted on cupcakes and one-dimensional offenses. Our seemingly strong defense proceeded to be destroyed once we faced teams with even any semblance of a decent passing attack or balanced offense.

The best pieces of evidence to refute the causative effects of "The Play" are VT and Miami moving the ball on us in their games before "the Play."
Miami, with a rookie FR QB making his first start, passed for 272 yds, 2 TDs, and completed 69% passing against our "vaunted" Cheetahs. This has continued against UNC, Pitt, and UVA.
VT, with Brewer returning for his first game since getting hurt six weeks ago, threw for 270 yds and 3 TDs.
These guys aren't great QBs and aren't at the helm of potent offenses, but we see that our shutdown defense might be vulnerable to balanced offenses or any teams that have a decent passing game.

Going through our schedule game-by-game, it looks like we've merely beaten up on bad teams and lost to every team with a winning record.

Wins:
Tulane (3-8): cupcake
NCCU (I-AA): cupcake
GT (3-8): one-dimensional option offense. Extremely close game, even after Devon's return TD, only up 6 until the last 2 minutes.
BC (3-8): no wins against P5 comp, one-dimensional power run offense, but still their terrible QB completed some long bombs on us, first warning sign. Barely won by 2, their kicker missed a makeable FB w/ 4 mins left.
Army (2-9): cupcake, one-dimensional option offense
VT (5-6): our best win in 4OT over a mediocre VT in their starting QB's first game back. The first somewhat balanced offense we ran into and barely beat.

Losses:
#20 NU (9-2): a good loss as far as losses go
Miami (7-4): didn't show up for 55 mins of the game, and this is pre-THE PLAY. Let their redshirt frosh QB pass all over us in his first start ever. Balanced offense.
#17 UNC (10-1): didn't belong on the same field. Strong passing attack, strong rushing attack, balanced offense.
Pitt (8-3): didn't show up 2nd half after a decent 1st half. Team missing their best player. Balanced offense.
UVA (4-7): didn't show up until the 4th quarter. A team that beat GT, lost by 40+ to Boise State, had a record passing day against us. An average balanced offense.

Our offense was very inconsistent the whole season, and unfortunately that has remained consistent post-Miami. It's not like they were humming on all cylinders then shattered after the Play.
Our defense was extremely successful shutting down overmatched teams and offense that could only run the ball before Miami. During the VT and Miami games, these average offenses that could both run and pass had lots of success on us. Post-THE PLAY, this has merely continued, so I honestly think the psychological effects may be overblown, and this 4-game losing streak has merely revealed our true level.

The game against Wake (3-8) will be a good experiment. Our team that is 6-5 over the entire season should beat them. But if we've really been two different teams this season, a 6-2 pre-Miami team and 0-3 post-Miami team, then the 0-3 post-Miami team (our present team) could probably lose.

Other than that, I hope we play an non-P5 option team in our bowl game. That's not Navy in the Military Bowl, though we might match up well with them, who knows?

[Devilwin]

Boehme needs to start. Period.

[eddiehaskell]

It's a small sample size to really know how or if "The Play" impacted the season.

Yes, three cupcakes, but we took care of business as we should've.

GT is 3-8, but better than the record suggest. They played us close. They played UNC close. They BEAT FSU. They played ND close. They played Pitt close. They lost to VT by 2 points.

Northwestern is darn near a top 15 team in the country. It was a 12-10 game into the 4th quarter.

Boston college isn't a great win, but like GT, they've played well in several losing efforts. Respectable performance against Clemson. Florida St held to 14 points. 3-0 loss to Wake. 14-17 loss to Louisville. 16-19 loss to ND. 7-9 loss to Duke. That's 4 losses by a combined 10 points.

For what it's worth, GT and BC may be some of the best 3-8 teams in the country...probably better than many teams going to bowls.

A win @VT is legit regardless of 4 OTs. UNC is a top 15 team and barely escaped. They played decent against OSU. Lost by 4 to Pitt...2 to Duke and 3 to UNC. That's 3 losses by a combined 9 points. With a few different bounces, VT could easily be 8-3 right now and probably finish 9-3.

Miami has now put together a decent record at 7-4. We beat them. You can look at coaching changes or QBs, but that's irrelevant. We didn't play well, but did enough at the end to win. A lot of good teams do the same.

To sum up, that's three blowout wins against cupcakes, 3 wins against good teams with bad records, a win against 7-4 Miami and a 19-10 loss to a top 15 team. After "The Play" 3 bad losses.

[jv001]

No matter what, I like 6 wins a lot better than 0 wins and that's what I had to live with for several years. I think Cut gets it figured out by bowl kick off or at the worst, 2016 kick off. GoDuke!

[freshmanjs]

A lot has been made of the loss* to Miami on "The Play" and it's supposed psychological effects that crushed the souls and minds of our powerful Duke football team, causing us to go from 6-1 to 6-5. A three game losing streak since that lateral play.

This is not what people (including me) were saying. More accurate would be "The Play" and it's supposed psychological effects on our good, but fragile team, in light of its very thin margin for error against quality competition.