Agree on every point above.....the football gods, not to mention "reversion to the mean" (often kind of the same force) are real things in CFB....I'm convinced. And they don't like Duke's black unis either. Amazing we escaped all that bad karma....
Star Thomas is one of those special runners who moves laterally just about as fast as he does moving forward. He sees where the hole is and finds it. It must be infuriating for other teams to plug the hole our line is trying to open (at those rare, rare times
) and find that Star is already five yards downfield five yards to the left or right.Star Thomas is one of those special runners who moves laterally just about as fast as he does moving forward. He sees where the hole is and finds it. It must be infuriating for other teams to plug the hole our line is trying to open (at those rare, rare times
There were a number of run where we made excellent ankle tackles, and had we missed them he could have been gone. Alarmingly close on a number of occasions, but good tackling prevailed.
We dominated in the second half. With any reasonable offensive outputs in the first half, it would probably have been an easier win.
His Junior season stats at NMSU were impressive:
Thanks. Is his last year of eligibility then?
Yes, I believe it is. Thomas played two seasons at NMSU after playing his freshman year at Coffeyville CC.
I agree with that. Several times, we just needed 3 - 5 yards for a first down, and he would be called upon to throw a long, low probability pass.
I watched Mack's presser and was impressed by his candor, centeredness, accountability and graciousness. The context of his mentioning Carolina's winning 5 in a row was in answer to a question about how his team was feeling. He responded that they were feeling awful, terrible, they had played their hearts out and left it all on the field. But then he said that he told his team, Guys, this is what the Duke players have felt 5 times in a row. Yet, they came back and won this one. This was an empathetic, classy comment. He was reminding his team that in sports you do your best and sometimes you lose. No whining. He went on to say that there are life lessons from sports that are more important than winning or losing games.
This reminds me. One thing I meant to mention in my earlier post was how impressed I was with the crowd and how much noise the Duke faithful made. For anyone there Sat night, you folks made a lot of noise as it was obvious even via the broadcast. It sure warmed the cockles of this ol' Duke fan's heart.
This year is his fifth and last now that he has played 5 games. He had two seasons at Coffeyville.
I think they go there to use the indoor toilets.
Crowd noise was good, could tell on the broadcast. Whenever talking about good Duke crowd noise though, I always think back on the game at ND where we basically owned the stadium in South Bend on the last two drives. I rewatched the broadcast because the game was so good (was in attendance at the game), and you can loudly hear “Let’s Go Duke” even though we were on the road. One of my favorite Duke football experiences of all time, only slightly behind the 2012 Victory Bell win
I have to say I'm envious that you were at the Notre Dame game because that was one for the ages!
The HT speech is the best. I know he's just generally good at motivation/focus, as we've seen all year so far, but ... I can't help but think his memories of Mack throwing him under the bus at UT in 2013 are still pretty fresh.
