FB: Duke 14, Wake 24 Post-Game Thread

[JasonEvans]

Moving the conversation from during the game to the conversation after the game.

Sigh... sadly, this game felt a bit like old times for Duke -- as in pre-Cut Duke -- where we just seemed to make the key error (often mental ones) that cost us a very winnable game.

On the good side, I thought Jones was much better in the 2nd half than he was in the first.
Well, on to next week.

-Jason "My niece goes to NWestern. If we lose, I have to wear a NWestern T-shirt to the next family gathering" Evans

[fuse]

Moving the conversation from during the game to the conversation after the game.

Sigh... sadly, this game felt a bit like old times for Duke -- as in pre-Cut Duke -- where we just seemed to make the key error (often mental ones) that cost us a very winnable game.

On the good side, I thought Jones was much better in the 2nd half than he was in the first.
Well, on to next week.

-Jason "My niece goes to NWestern. If we lose, I have to wear a NWestern T-shirt to the next family gathering" Evans

Guessing you may want to get comfortable in purple. :rolleyes:

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

What is the opposite of "bend but don't break" defense? Is there a term for "playing mostly solid D, then getting burned for 25-50 yards on a play?"

Frustrating game. Duke looked like the better team when they were under the gun on offense. Nice ball mocement in the hurry-up.

I agree that this sets an ominous tone for the rest of the season. Hope our fan base stays patient.

[luvdahops]

Guessing you may want to get comfortable in purple. :rolleyes:

Well, Northwestern is now 0-2 after losing at home to an FCS team (Illinois State), 9-7. This comes on the heels of dropping their opener (also at home) to Western Michigan of the MAC. They were out gained in both games, and have had a terrible time controlling the line of scrimmage on either side if the ball. Still a very winnable game in my view.

[Avvocato]

Well, I try not to overreact to Week 1, and similarly try not to overreact to Week 2. As most remember, most predicted we would be around 6-6, give or take a game. Before the season, I thought we needed to be at least 4-2 going into the second half. However, the games we had to win included Wake. Again, you don't overreact to one week, as much as this loss really stings. Hopefully it's a reality check but you don't start jumping ship. Thankfully, Northwestern has not played well yet. This makes the Northwestern game the most important game of the season. A win there, we can go into ND at 2-1 and be okay. Regardless, we see that this team is young, is talented, but still putting it together.

As for the Wake game in general, I was surprised that we basically abandoned the running game. Even if Wake is stout up front, you have to still run and balance the attack. If anything, it showed the confidence the coaches have in Jones to keep throwing that way. We still need balance though. I was also surprised to see the tight ends out of the offense. Not sure if that was Wake's D, or what. I still think Jones played well considering it's his second start and what he was asked to do. He just needs some help with the running attack. He still has plenty of room to grow, but still lots to like. Also great pass on the long completion. Too bad we couldn't capitalize.

The missed kicks didn't help, but I'll optimistically chalk those up to freshmen nerves. The kicks looked solid enough just right. My son distracted me so I missed a botched hold mentioned above. What you hope doesn't happen is a confidence problem. When that goes for a kicker, that s hard to beat. Hope he gets a few easy ones next week to get it going.

Well, very tough loss. As several said before the game, Wake could be dangerous but with our difficult schedule was one of the games we needed to win. Didn't happen, so it means Northwestern is a must game if this team is going to try to make a bowl. Let's go get Northwestern and we'll figure out the rest.

[devildeac]

I'll guess that when Bob Green gets home (safely) shortly that he's going to have trouble sleeping tonight when he looks at this stat:

30 rushes, 37 yards for a stunning 1.2 YPC. :mad:

[Avvocato]

I'll guess that when Bob Green gets home (safely) shortly that he's going to have trouble sleeping tonight when he looks at this stat:

30 rushes, 37 yards for a stunning 1.2 YPC. :mad:

Additionally, rushing attempts:

Jones - 19

Duncan - 9

Wilson - 2

Means not many designed runs, particularly to the running backs.

[Troublemaker]

Well, Northwestern is now 0-2 after losing at home to an FCS team (Illinois State), 9-7. This comes on the heels of dropping their opener (also at home) to Western Michigan of the MAC. They were out gained in both games, and have had a terrible time controlling the line of scrimmage on either side if the ball. Still a very winnable game in my view.

True, although I kinda wish NW had squeaked out two wins instead of losing two squeakers, all things being equal (i.e. the quality of their team remains the same). Because, at 0-2, they're going to look at us the way we're looking at them -- as a must-win. Two desperate teams next week, both probably thinking they're playing to maintain bowl eligibility hopes.

[Isaac Sours]

Additionally, rushing attempts:

Jones - 19

Duncan - 9

Wilson - 2

Means not many designed runs, particularly to the running backs.

I have a bone to pick with whoever gave Jela and Shaun only 11 combined carries.

[Bob Green]

I'll guess that when Bob Green gets home (safely) shortly that he's going to have trouble sleeping tonight when he looks at this stat:

30 rushes, 37 yards for a stunning 1.2 YPC. :mad:

I just got home (safely). We gave up trying to run the ball today. No balance on offense. Frustrating.

[75Crazie]

I was surprised that we basically abandoned the running game.
I was not the least bit surprised. The Duke O-line was getting flat-out whipped by the Wake D-line. There was just no room to run the ball. This was the single most disappointing aspect of the game to me. If the offensive line does not show significant improvement, it is going to be a long season.

[devildeac]

My prediction from the pre-game thread:

"I'll stick with my 24-14 prognostication."

I just got the @#$% teams wrong.

:mad:

[PDDuke85]

I just got home (safely). We gave up trying to run the ball today. No balance on offense. Frustrating.

But we didn't abandon the bubble screen to T. J. Rahming.

[devildeac]

I have a bone to pick with whoever gave Jela and Shaun only 11 combined carries.

Ozzie can probably tell you which Roper that was...

[OZ]

I was not the least bit surprised. The Duke O-line was getting flat-out whipped by the Wake D-line. There was just no room to run the ball. This was the single most disappointing aspect of the game to me. If the offensive line does not show significant improvement, it is going to be a long season.


Wake stacked the line in order to stop the run; and pretty much dared us to beat their man to man pass coverage... we didn't. Better correct that in a hurry or we'll see it again next week.
I thought perhaps, we might have seen a change in quarterbacks in the second half, but we didn't.
We should have tried a field goal last week.
Maybe it was the heat, but this game just seemed weird.

[Olympic Fan]

Wake stacked the line in order to stop the run; and pretty much dared us to beat their man to man pass coverage... we didn't. Better correct that in a hurry or we'll see it again next week.
I thought perhaps, we might have seen a change in quarterbacks in the second half, but we didn't.
We should have tried a field goal last week.
Maybe it was the heat, but this game just seemed weird.

Disheartening loss ... but not quite ready to bury to this team.

I think this is a talented squad that screwed itself with its inexperience.

Oz nailed it on offense -- Wake staked the box and dared us to throw. Which we did, fairly successfully -- but not quite consistent enough.

Still, we pretty much controlled the first half, but that's when we lost the game. We're in the Wake 25 four times in the first half -- and got the one score on our first possession.

I would say four plays cost us the game:

-- We're up 7-0 and get a great punt return from Ryan Smith into Wake territory. On first down, Jones tries to throw a swing pass to Shaun Wilson, but he doesn't see the defender draped all over Wilson. The ball gets tipped away, it's ruled a lateral (which it is) and Wake recovers.
-- The two missed field goals -- one when we're up 7-0 ... the other when it's 7-7. Make either of those and its a totally different game.
-- The Jones fumble to start the second half. The score's tied 7-7 and we give Wake a gift touchdown ...

I guess I could also cite the 50-yard TD run on short yardage when the score was 14-all or the long pass down the right sideline when we had them backed up and were about to get a punt near midfield, down just 21-14, but by that point, we were scrambling. I thought the four plays I cited happened when we were in control ... and helped turn the game around.

Like I said, not saying the season is over. There is still a lot of talent on this team, but the schedule is tough. Really need to beat a staggering Northwestern team next week to keep our bowl hopes alive. But love that one and we'll be 1-3 after the Notre Dame game, so winning at NW is pretty important.

[Bob Green]

I think this is a talented squad that screwed itself with its inexperience.



Yep, I agree wholeheartedly. The Sun is going to come up this morning and the team is going to start preparing for next week. A win at Northwestern is a must to keep bowl hopes alive.

We had very little to no success with passes to the perimeter yet we kept throwing them. The quick slants and crossing routes to Nash and Lloyd were working.

I'd like to see more motion in our offense. We ran a Jet Sweep with Rahming one time and he gained six or seven yards but we never went back to the play. Run more sweeps with receivers, send the slot receiver in motion or roll the quarterback after the snap to make the defense react.

[oldnavy]

Well that was frustrating. The heat on the East Side was almost unbearable in the first half. In the second half we moved out of our seat and up to the wall where there was a nice albeit warm breeze and that along with the sun lowering made it much, much more tolerable.

I wish I could say the same about the play on the field. There is no way to sugar coat it, we play bad... very bad.

The defense was the most disappointing to me... missed tackles, where we would put a good initial hit on the ball carrier but fail to wrap up and bring them down. This was extremely frustrating to watch. Give the Wake players credit, they played HARD. We didn't seem to match their intensity which is inexcusable to me. I made a comment to my brother in law that this performance made me feel like I was watching a flashback of Duke Football, pre-Cutcliff! Not giving up by a long stretch, but we did seem to take a step back yesterday.

The offense... for those of you frustrated that we didn't run... Wake took that away from us early on, and we never could establish a run game. They we stacking the box against the run, their D-line was more physical than our O-line and they just jammed us up. What we could not take advantage of was the one on one match ups on our WR's. We do not have wide outs that have shown that they can get open in mTm coverage, and that is a recipe for failure. Expect to see other teams mimic what Wake did today, until we can open up the box by getting guys open in those mTm coverage's and forcing some zone coverage or double coverage.

I think Jones may develop into a good QB, but right now he is hesitant and is not making his reads quick enough. I expect he will see on the tape where we did have some guys open down field, but he never saw them or did see them and didn't pull the trigger for whatever reason. There were not very many opportunities, but we did have a few. I expect he will grow into the role, but he is just not quite ready yet IMO.

Wake's Hinton is a good QB. Wake was rotating QB's early, but they saw that we really didn't have a good answer for him and they went to him exclusively in the 2nd half. He has a really good arm, as evidenced by his back breaking throw late in the game down the Duke sideline. That ball was PERFECTLY thrown. We let the receive get behind us and Hinton placed the ball into his hands beautifully. The receiver didn't even have to break stride to catch it... a REALLY NICE play on Wake's part.... got to give them credit for calling that play and then executing it as well as they did. That was the end of the game for all intents and purposes.

I was very disappointed by what I saw yesterday. BUT, we are a young team, with a Fr(r) QB who simply just has to get some game experience before we can become a dangerous Offensive team.... The defensive tackling HAS to improve or we will be in for a very, very long year. We simply cannot give up 5+ yards after first contact like we did on multiple occasions yesterday and expect to have any success this year. We need to clean up the penalties, the QB play, the WR play, and the O line play, but if we don't start tackling better it will not matter IMO.

p.s. I really think we have a future star in #44 Giles-Harris... he has a nose for the ball. Looking forward to watching his development.

I trust Cut, and I expect us to correct these issues and win next week.... and THANK HEAVEN FOOTBALL IS BACK!! GO DUKE!

[Bob Green]

... and THANK HEAVEN FOOTBALL IS BACK!! GO DUKE!

While losing the game sucked, I still enjoyed the day. Tailgate was great followed by an enjoyable afternoon sitting with Newton_14, DevilDeac and DPSLaw watching the game.




The offense... for those of you frustrated that we didn't run... Wake took that away from us early on, and we never could establish a run game. They we stacking the box against the run, their D-line was more physical than our O-line and they just jammed us up. What we could not take advantage of was the one on one match ups on our WR's. We do not have wide outs that have shown that they can get open in mTm coverage, and that is a recipe for failure. Expect to see other teams mimic what Wake did today, until we can open up the box by getting guys open in those mTm coverage's and forcing some zone coverage or double coverage.

Hats off to Wake's defense! Not only did they control the box to shutdown our between the tackles running game, they simultaneously took away our perimeter passing game. Once we started going to the middle of the field with slants, some success was achieved but we failed to string together plays to complete the drives.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

There was a lot to like from Jones. He showed the arm for the long ball, the head for the hurry up, and the wheels for eluding pressure. I will be excited to watch him develop under one of the best QB coaches in the game at any level.

[dukelifer]

Yep, I agree wholeheartedly. The Sun is going to come up this morning and the team is going to start preparing for next week. A win at Northwestern is a must to keep bowl hopes alive.

We had very little to no success with passes to the perimeter yet we kept throwing them. The quick slants and crossing routes to Nash and Lloyd were working.

I'd like to see more motion in our offense. We ran a Jet Sweep with Rahming one time and he gained six or seven yards but we never went back to the play. Run more sweeps with receivers, send the slot receiver in motion or roll the quarterback after the snap to make the defense react.
There seems to be a lack of trust with the QB. Everything is safe. This leads to a tentativeness that stifles the play on the field. One thing that I really liked about Sirk is that he had a toughness and an ability to make plays in the clutch. His teammates trusted him. Football is an emotional game and the team lacks that emotional leader on O. Can't expect Jones to have it from the get go. It will come with experience but it needs to come quickly or it will be a rough season.

[peteandpete]

1) Wake executed their game plan and imposed their will.
2) We have to get better at finishing drives and the kicking game.
3) Disappointing that our secondary failed to keep receivers in front in some crucial situations.
4) Where did the tight ends go this week?
5) Wake seemed to do a good job upsetting our tempo with timely injuries. A rule change that takes away timeouts might be a good idea for the future.
6) Not our best tackling performance.
7) Few attempts to get to the edge with the ground game - I know they were stacking the box, but we failed to make any adjustments that might have kept the ground game as an option.
8) Too many penalties and problems with ball security.

[Richard Berg]

O-line got manhandled pretty much the whole game (first drive excepted). Most of our penalty yards came from them, as well. Really missing our graduated '14-15 seniors there.

[Olympic Fan]

O-line got manhandled pretty much the whole game (first drive excepted). Most of our penalty yards came from them, as well. Really missing our graduated '14-15 seniors there.

I think that's a little easy to overstate. Our line did not open up any running room against a Wake defense that was stacked against the run. It's not a bad rush defense -- last year they held Louisville to 68 rushing yards ... FSU to 127. They pretty much stifled a run-only Tulane team the week before.

Still, it was a pretty pathetic job opening holes.

I thought the pass blocking was much better. I know Wake got five sacks, but in postgame, Cut blamed at least two of those on mistake by the RBs and a couple more on Jones, for holding the ball too long. I thought for most of the game, he had a lot of time to throw ... until very late in the game, when we were behind and forced into a pass-only situation.

Agree it wasn't a great showing by the OL ... but it wasn't as bad as some would line to make it. We do have three starters back on the OL, along with a fourth-year junior who has seen a lot of action. We're young at one guard spot. A year ago, we had the best running QB in Duke history to help the O-Line and the RBs -- Jones is not a bad runner, but he's not in Sirk's class ... and Cut doesn't want to rush him by running him 20 times a game.

The line has to get better ... we'll see this week.

[oldnavy]

I think that's a little easy to overstate. Our line did not open up any running room against a Wake defense that was stacked against the run. It's not a bad rush defense -- last year they held Louisville to 68 rushing yards ... FSU to 127. They pretty much stifled a run-only Tulane team the week before.

Still, it was a pretty pathetic job opening holes.

I thought the pass blocking was much better. I know Wake got five sacks, but in postgame, Cut blamed at least two of those on mistake by the RBs and a couple more on Jones, for holding the ball too long. I thought for most of the game, he had a lot of time to throw ... until very late in the game, when we were behind and forced into a pass-only situation.

Agree it wasn't a great showing by the OL ... but it wasn't as bad as some would line to make it. We do have three starters back on the OL, along with a fourth-year junior who has seen a lot of action. We're young at one guard spot. A year ago, we had the best running QB in Duke history to help the O-Line and the RBs -- Jones is not a bad runner, but he's not in Sirk's class ... and Cut doesn't want to rush him by running him 20 times a game.

The line has to get better ... we'll see this week.

Not to mention the risk of injury in an area where we don't have great depth!

[jimsumner]

Not to mention the risk of injury in an area where we don't have great depth!

Would it be churlish of me to point out that Jones had 48 pass attempts and 19 rushes against Wake?

Now, he was credited with a rush on that backwards pass to Wilson and he was sacked five times. Of course, that means Duke called well over 50 passes, which may not be the best way to protect a young quarterback who still hasn't figured out opposing defenses and doesn't always know when to throw it away and live to fight another down.

So, if Duke is prioritizing protecting Jones, they might need to go back to the proverbial drawing board.

I rather suspect better use of Duncan and Wilson will be part of the solution.

Says Captain Obvious.

[oldnavy]

Would it be churlish of me to point out that Jones had 48 pass attempts and 19 rushes against Wake?

Now, he was credited with a rush on that backwards pass to Wilson and he was sacked five times. Of course, that means Duke called well over 50 passes, which may not be the best way to protect a young quarterback who still hasn't figured out opposing defenses and doesn't always know when to throw it away and live to fight another down.

So, if Duke is prioritizing protecting Jones, they might need to go back to the proverbial drawing board.

I rather suspect better use of Duncan and Wilson will be part of the solution.

Says Captain Obvious.

Duncan and Wilson (i.e., the running game) were part of the problem against Wake. They couldn't get going at all (not necessarily their fault) so when you eliminate the run game (which Wake did) as an option, what is left?

I doubt that Duke is prioritizing protecting Jones, but if you can not run the ball, then you are left with passing the ball. Sure we called a lot of passing plays, but when facing 2nd and 3rd down and long situations and playing from behind, that's what happens. Also, it seems a significant portion of our passes are tosses behind the line of scrimmage, which is basically like a hand off albeit, and extended one.

Jim, you would know better than most, do you think Duke's game plan to start the game was to rely on Jones tossing it 50 times? If that was on the drawing board to start the game, then we have a separate problem to deal with.

Jones holds the ball to long, which may or may not be all on him. Maybe he needs to trust his receivers to make a play when covered, but he is young as you said and is learning.

Our WR's cannot allow single man coverage to shut them down like it did against Wake. They have to be able to get open in single coverage. Until they show that they can, any smart coach, will duplicate Wake and stack the box with the safety and dare us to run. This will be a problem for us, because even the strong running teams can get bogged down when trying to run with 8 men in the box.

Even with all of our offensive issues, if our defense would have tackled better, we still would have won this game IMO...

Work to be done on both sides of the ball...