I can only qualify for the question and not the preamble. Elon is a decent but not great FCS team--much better than Elon 2010/NCCU/NCAT. Duke looks like a well-coached team with little margin for error against most of the ACC. A good defense with Murphy hitting a couple of those passes can win 1-2 more against P5 teams. Too many TOs/POTs against CT and MTSU might change those to the loss column. I'll up my prediction to 4-8 given the current run game, and I'm not going to be upset with that start in year 1 of the Diaz era. (We'll talk in year 3 or 4 if the trend continues.) I'll trust some of you to scout the Wildcats, but I don't see Duke winning that one. That game might literally be the perfect storm, and I don't think Duke was trying to hide the run game to keep NW from loading the box.While it may not have been by as much as many of us would have liked (or needed), it was still a solid win. I loved the aggressive D. I expect it may give up the odd big play but it is certainly fun to watch. My question to my other more knowledgeable posters is: how much was Duke being good or was Elon bad?...
I am very happy that Duke is 1-0 to start the Diaz era.
FB: Duke 26, Elon 3
- Thread starter Bob Green
- Start date
I agree with most of this but 4-8 would be pretty disappointing assuming Duke goes 3-1 in the non-conference slate. I do think getting more than two ACC wins would be very solid in year one and cannot fault you given the schedule.
75Crazie
Member
Yeah, that's why I said "planned QB runs", of which more than a few were called for both Jones and Leonard. Unplanned runs are sometimes necessary.
sagegrouse
Member
We survived on the Run-Pass Option. Hard to believe we wouldn't use it this year.
Listen to Quants
Member
Indeed. Health. I expect Murphy will run for yardage in close games when it's open, and no receiver is. Unlike some, I'm not worried about his accuracy, a couple of his long balls were off by 'inches' (really perhaps 20 or so inches but still close). I'm more worried about his vision of defenders, not the cover guy, but others closing in on the target. That becomes 'throwing into double or triple coverage' or the cemetery ball that luckily Jordan Moore didn't catch. I expect that vision will improve.
Maybe the Elon coach took the points.
Dr. Maturin
Member
The Good:
- It felt great to be back in Wallace Wade last night. Mother nature was fickle, but after a stormy day it was a really nice night for football. The students showed up and people seemed to be enjoying the Devils Deck.
- The defensive front was amazing. 8 sacks and 16 TFLs will do just fine. Really, defense as a whole was great. Would have loved to add some takeaways, but it was a really nice showing.
- Pass protection was reasonably solid. 0 sacks allowed and Maalik was hardly touched.
- I think our passing offense shows promise. Maalik needs no invitation to uncork one downfield and his arm strength is for real. I am hoping that with time, he'll develop better chemistry with his receivers.
- Really happy to see Eli Pancol out there and making plays.
- There were some promising debuts. DeShawn Stone looked comfortable filling in for Stinson in the 1st half, and Que'shawn Brown looked good returning punts.
The Bad:
- Our running game was alarmingly bad. We couldn't create running lanes for our backs, our backs did way too much dancing around, and we did not fool Elon at all with anything we did on the ground. Perhaps we kept things vanilla for Game 1. But we looked very basic in our running game. This felt like a huge contrast to last season, where we schemed our running game well enough to run the ball even against the likes of Clemson and FSU. Talent is a huge part of this, no doubt. We were always going to take a big step back on the OL this year. Some national folks were calling it the worst OL in the P4. I won't jump to conclusions yet, but the early returns are not good, at least when it comes to run blocking.
- 0 rushing attempts for our QB. I was pretty surprised to see this. If Murphy truly is going to be a pocket passer with little or no running threat, then I am going to have to reduce my expectations substantially. Again, perhaps this was week 1 caution from our OC, but I'm not sure. Maalik seems disposed to using his legs to buy time to make throws, rather than scrambling for yardage.
- The passing game was productive, but inconsistent. Maalik was so close to hitting a handful of deep balls, and his receivers didn't do him any favors in contested situations. Maalik also forced the ball on a few occasions.
The Realistic:
- The road gets a lot tougher next week. We need to be a lot more physical on offense going up against a Big 10 team.
- It's best not to jump to conclusions after week one. We're 1-0, and I'll take that for now.
- It felt great to be back in Wallace Wade last night. Mother nature was fickle, but after a stormy day it was a really nice night for football. The students showed up and people seemed to be enjoying the Devils Deck.
- The defensive front was amazing. 8 sacks and 16 TFLs will do just fine. Really, defense as a whole was great. Would have loved to add some takeaways, but it was a really nice showing.
- Pass protection was reasonably solid. 0 sacks allowed and Maalik was hardly touched.
- I think our passing offense shows promise. Maalik needs no invitation to uncork one downfield and his arm strength is for real. I am hoping that with time, he'll develop better chemistry with his receivers.
- Really happy to see Eli Pancol out there and making plays.
- There were some promising debuts. DeShawn Stone looked comfortable filling in for Stinson in the 1st half, and Que'shawn Brown looked good returning punts.
The Bad:
- Our running game was alarmingly bad. We couldn't create running lanes for our backs, our backs did way too much dancing around, and we did not fool Elon at all with anything we did on the ground. Perhaps we kept things vanilla for Game 1. But we looked very basic in our running game. This felt like a huge contrast to last season, where we schemed our running game well enough to run the ball even against the likes of Clemson and FSU. Talent is a huge part of this, no doubt. We were always going to take a big step back on the OL this year. Some national folks were calling it the worst OL in the P4. I won't jump to conclusions yet, but the early returns are not good, at least when it comes to run blocking.
- 0 rushing attempts for our QB. I was pretty surprised to see this. If Murphy truly is going to be a pocket passer with little or no running threat, then I am going to have to reduce my expectations substantially. Again, perhaps this was week 1 caution from our OC, but I'm not sure. Maalik seems disposed to using his legs to buy time to make throws, rather than scrambling for yardage.
- The passing game was productive, but inconsistent. Maalik was so close to hitting a handful of deep balls, and his receivers didn't do him any favors in contested situations. Maalik also forced the ball on a few occasions.
The Realistic:
- The road gets a lot tougher next week. We need to be a lot more physical on offense going up against a Big 10 team.
- It's best not to jump to conclusions after week one. We're 1-0, and I'll take that for now.
UrinalCake
Member
"Devil's Deck" would mean the deck belongs to one devil.
"Devils Deck" means there are lots of devils on the deck (seems correct to me).
"Devils' Deck" would mean the deck belongs to lots of Devils, which I guess would be the most appropriate but is too complicated to write.
"Devils Deck" means there are lots of devils on the deck (seems correct to me).
"Devils' Deck" would mean the deck belongs to lots of Devils, which I guess would be the most appropriate but is too complicated to write.
I think this is a spot on summary of yesterday, totally agree
Hopefully we can make some big improvements in our running game because we'll need to be a lot better going forward to win against stronger opponents. I think even as the game went on, the RBs did a little better at not dancing around as much and just hitting the hole and falling forward (that 4th quarter TD drive was our best on the running side) so hopefully that continues, but whether it was playcalling, blocking/scheming, or whatever it was a bit concerning that we couldn't really create holes against what will likely be the weakest defense we will play against this year. But, like you said, it's also week 1 against an opponent that allowed us to keep things a little vanilla, so I still have hopes we can have a viable running game this season. We should learn more about our ability to move the ball against Northwestern, who I don't think will be great this season, but should be a pretty big step up in defensive talent.
On Murphy running, I don't really think that was just a week 1 thing- he had 0 rushing attempts last year at Texas (in only 2 starts, but still) and it doesn't really look like he ran in high school either- in the 25 games Maxpreps had the stats for, he had 104 TOTAL yards rushing. He's got such great size, I'd love to see if he could power forward in short yardage situations, but running just doesn't seem to be part of his game. Based on yesterday's gameplan, it looks like the QB run aspect of our offense the last two years is going to be replaced by short passes, where Maalik was pretty effective, even when throwing on the move.
Really pleased with the defense and even with some dropped long passes (that could have really boosted the passing numbers), our passing game looks pretty good.
Also
“Devil’s Deck” could mean the devil is deck
“Devils Deck” could mean devils at least occasionally deck
peteandpete
Member
Throwing 40 times against Elon surprised me. Perhaps this was intentional to work on the up-tempo passing game against a real opponent. Fingers crossed. I was disappointed in three coaching decisions: 1) calling a time-out with seven seconds left in the 1Q with 25 seconds left on the play clock (what if that TO had been needed later), 2) not kicking a FG on 4th and 6, and 3) going for a 2 pt conversion when it wasn't necessary (it seldom is). I watched some of the NW/Miami game. More on NW later; however, I like our chances if we play well and run the ball better.
Mike Petrik
Member
After watching the ND, Clemson, Miami, and VT games yesterday, I don't see how or offense will be able to compete without a QB that is at least somewhat of a threat to run.
Mike Petrik
Member
With respect to the rather famous home field of the Bears, Chicago resolved the contentious apostrophe debate by simply excising the "s." Soldier Field! The absence of the "s" for Soldier Field was actually quite heated at the time, and frankly the powers that be (corrupt knuckleheads to be sure) almost certainly resolved it poorly. Even most native Chicagoans call it "Soldiers' Field," except perhaps for a few cohorts of pedantic north-siders. So, while I don't know what to do about the apostrophe, I'm a hard "no" for removing the "s."
-jk
Moderator
Yes, removing the "s" would make it sound like "deviled eck". Bleck.
CameronBlue
Member
That covers noun, verb and adjective...5 more to go.
Phredd3
Member
How about treating "Deck" as a transitive verb, rather than a noun. I still say we just need some enterprising students to hoist the opposing team name up there when we win. "Devils Deck Elon".
Wow—tough crowd!
I'm struggling to see how folks are getting 4-8 from our schedule. Miami and GaTech both had outstanding openers, and FSU surely outclasses our talent level, but I didn't see anyone else on the schedule lighting any fields on fire. VaTech looked pedestrian in losing to Vandy. SMU struggled against Nevada in their opener. Northwestern had trouble putting points on the board against Miami... no, not that Miami—the one in Ohio. UConn was taken behind the woodshed by Maryland. MTSU won a barn-burner against Tennessee Tech. The Tar Heels were gifted a win by Minnesota's outstanding kicking game. Heck, even NCState needed a late game surge to beat Western Carolina. Granted, Wake blew the doors off their opponent... the vaunted NCA&T Aggies.
We win our opener by 23 with the [admittedly overmatched] Elon only avoiding the shutout by hitting a late-game FG, our D holding them to 140 yards of total offense in the process, wreaking havoc with 16 TFLs (that's twice the average of a Diaz defensive unit, by the way) and 8 sacks (and somehow no turnovers, mind you), and folks are already hitting the sub-500 panic button? While it's possible we may go 4-8 this season, I'm just not seeing that as a logical conclusion thus far based on our first game performance vis a vis the first game performances of other teams on our schedule (again, who didn't exactly run circles around similarly mediocre opposition right out of the gates)... Let's just take a deep breath and see how this thing plays out—we might be pleasantly surprised...
Mike Petrik
Member
100% agree. We have every reason to hope for another bowl bid. We might fall short of course, but it is by no means a ridiculous ambition.