FB: Duke 23, Florida State 16

MartyClark said:
I didn't got to Duke and have had narrow Duke interests for decades, not surprisingly its Duke men's basketball.

I've gotten a bit interested in Duke football and watched the game last night. I was happy to see Duke win and see the defense shine.

The Duke offense is not good. Am I the only one that thinks the Duke QB just doesn't have what it takes?
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Welcome to Duke Football! And that last statement is a bit like wading into a Duke MBB game thread and saying, “hey, what does everyone think about the distribution of minutes”? 😂
 
cbarry said:
I mean I hear ya, but SOMETHING has to change. We have beaten mostly bad teams with our flawed offense. We won’t win many more games with an offense that gets less than 200 yards and passes under 50%.
The time is NOW to change the QB.
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but you need to have a better QB to change to. We are limited by what we have (and who is not injured). Few choices.
Mike Petrik said:
Agree 100%. And one of the players we got is Henry Belin, a quarterback who can run. I like MM, but last night a QB run threat would have helped Thomas and our receiving corps.
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no doubt some QB mobility would be great, but I think Belin is not at 100%, some physical issue.
 
DoubleBlue said:
There was that one series in the early 2nd half where the Duke offense tried a few different things. They ran a wildcat formation with Murphy rolling to the left and a direct snap to Thomas who ran it up the middle for 5 yards. Then they ran a double pitch back to Murphy who completed a 12 yard pass to Hagans. I believe that was the longest Duke drive lasting 5:02 with 3 first downs, 10 plays for 48 yards, and it culminated in a 44-yd FG. But unfortunately they put that back in the bottle for the rest of the game. Perhaps the whole offense is still in a steep learning curve and not yet ready to go beyond the basics. Of course it doesn't help to have the top RB, WR and TE out with injuries.
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Exactly this. I've seen all year that when we are willing to mix in some first down 5-10 yard pass plays, it loosens up the defense for our run game. I just don't understand stubbornly sticking to the 1-2 yard first down runs. It's bizarre to me. Maybe I'm missing something. I'm sure the staff studies all the analytics on this stuff.
 
Mike Petrik said:
Exactly, having our first and second string tight ends out for the season is really tough. Hurts both our rushing and passing games badly. No easy fix for that. Perhaps playing time will improve Taylor? Maybe we have a talented “athlete” at another position not getting playing time that could learn on the job? I dunno, just reaching here. But an offense without a QB that can (or will) run NEEDS a good TE.
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Is Dalmolin out for the season or just a game or two?
 
SkyBrickey said:
Exactly this. I've seen all year that when we are willing to mix in some first down 5-10 yard pass plays, it loosens up the defense for our run game. I just don't understand stubbornly sticking to the 1-2 yard first down runs. It's bizarre to me. Maybe I'm missing something. I'm sure the staff studies all the analytics on this stuff.
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The offense at least needs to stay on the field long enough to give the defense time to recover. The time of possession for the game was surprisingly in Duke's favor: 30:45 to 29:15. Obviously had it not been for the +4 turnover margin Duke would not have been in position to control the game.
 
TheDevilMadeMeDoIt said:
Is Dalmolin out for the season or just a game or two?
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chrishoke said:
Apparently Manny said he was in his press conference.
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From the GoDuke postgame quotes:

“Offensively, it was a hard day. Jordan Moore was very limited in this game and not having Nicky Dalmolin midway through the week hurt. Nicky suffered a lower leg injury that’s going to force him to miss the rest of the season. It felt like we were playing without three of our best players on offense today without Jordan, Nicky and Jaquez Moore. But a big credit goes to the guys who played. Credit to Star Thomas for grinding out every yard he did because we needed all of them..."
 
Sorry, but he chose to leave so who cares? And glad Fat Elmo left. Our defense with probably lesser talent is much improved. With the injuries to the offense just root for them not to screw up. Anything good they do is gravy for this team.
 
brevity said:
From the GoDuke postgame quotes:

“Offensively, it was a hard day. Jordan Moore was very limited in this game and not having Nicky Dalmolin midway through the week hurt. Nicky suffered a lower leg injury that’s going to force him to miss the rest of the season. It felt like we were playing without three of our best players on offense today without Jordan, Nicky and Jaquez Moore. But a big credit goes to the guys who played. Credit to Star Thomas for grinding out every yard he did because we needed all of them..."
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Wow, the griping about the offense needs to stop. Hard for the OC to have much of an offensive game plan with your best players out. Still plenty of winnable games left thanks to our defense. Basking in the glory of 6-1 record.
 
peloton said:
I just ran across this post by a FSU fan...

I think the worst and most insulting part is Duke’s fans didn’t even feel the need to even rush the field after beating Florida State for the first time in program history. This is the worst Florida State team I have ever seen. Never have I been more frustrated watching this school play football. I gotta think it was the snub last year. It sucked all the life out of this program. I don’t know if I even want to watch the rest of the games. FSU is going 2-10.

That first sentence is pretty hilarious. Except for "the snub" related comments, the rest could've been made by any Duke football fan during the Dark Era. But that was then...this is now - we're in the Díaz era, my friends!🙂
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We were favored so it would be gauche to storm the field. (One may storm the field vs unc any time though). Emily Post basics
 
I recall a head coach years ago who was a defense guy. He said that as long as the D stops the opponent, all the O has to do is to minimize turnovers (0 against FSU), not get sacked () against FSU), and manage the clock (Duke has a slight time of possession edge), and have a chance to win at the end. So Manny probably is doing the same... managing the O and rely on the D, staying in position to win at the end. Hopefully this formula continues to work.
 
gep said:
I recall a head coach years ago who was a defense guy. He said that as long as the D stops the opponent, all the O has to do is to minimize turnovers (0 against FSU), not get sacked () against FSU), and manage the clock (Duke has a slight time of possession edge), and have a chance to win at the end. So Manny probably is doing the same... managing the O and rely on the D, staying in position to win at the end. Hopefully this formula continues to work.
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Yeah, there have been a lot of questions about why we haven’t tried other quarterbacks and why haven’t we done any quarterback runs. Limiting turnovers might be the reason.
 
75Crazie said:
It is sadly funny how more than a few people seem to believe that better play-calling can easily overcome the obvious deficiencies you describe.
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This. I've been critical of our offensive gameplanning/playcalling, but I'm not sure what we were supposed to do on Friday. FSU played with a light box and just crushed us with their DL. So the downfield passing game wasn't open, and our receivers mostly couldn't get open. FSU didn't have to overcommit to anything so it was hard to keep them off balance. We are so young at TE that basic stuff became much harder (e.g. we had a nice screen pass set up for Hagans that should have worked, but Taylor whiffed on the block).

Also, you adjust your strategy due to the game state. With the lead and the defense playing well, it was reasonable not to take as much risk. I recall Cut's Game Maxim #1: "the team that makes the fewest mistakes will win." That was us on Friday. While I'm frustrated with the offense, I'll give Maalik credit for doing the "game manager" stuff needed to win. In the last three games, he has just one turnover, and that was at the end against GT when we had no choice but to chuck it downfield. Our offense had a ton of "zero" plays, but really no "disaster" plays. No turnovers, no sacks allowed, and 6 TFL, which is a pretty low number for how bad we were dominated on the line.
 
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