FB: Duke 45, Elon 17 (Week 1 -- Thursday 8/28)

CameronBornAndBred said:
My take away from the game is this, and it ain't a good one.

Elon should not have been in this game at any point, much less the 4th quarter when there was still only a touchdown between the two teams. With Duke's explosion in points towards the end, it's easy to see what happened.
Elon wore out.


That's not going to happen against ACC competition (and Illinois). My optimism level for a solid season took a huge hit yesterday.
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Pretty much where I am, its going to take a much better performance against Illinois (even in a loss) to change my mind. That first half had my spider sense tingling, as in the Richmond Spiders. Jones dropping that easy touchdown pass gave me Charlotte flashbacks.
The defense seemed to be dialed in...until they allow that 3-20 conversion and then the wheels came off for 2 series. Both offense and defense seemed shaky, they were reacting instead of dictating the pace. It felt like early Cutcliffe teams in that this team might have talent, but they don't seem "together" in terms of execution. The OL looks no better this year than they were last year in terms of run blocking.
Leaving September 1-3 is a real possibility with a final 6-6 record being a lucky finish. Might be pessimistic and I hope to be wrong, would love to eat some crow seasoned with 11 herbs and spices. But if you've seen it before, you know the signs.
 
I think some of us are spoiled. We won by a larger margin than last year against a much better Elon team. Their new QB was a handful on the run. Was the performance flawless? Of course not. However, many questions were answered in the affirmative: we have a MAJOR upgrade at QB; the WR room looks pretty good (it was neat to see another young number 8 playing); we were much better on the ground against them this year; the OL was solid; and we adjusted to the new things they threw at us in the first half. We played a lot of people and spread the ball around on offense. Negatives: we lost a fumble, missed a FG, fumbled (and recovered) a punt return, and had a few bad pursuit angles and missed tackles. I think we'll see some improvement next week and some wrinkles that we didn't see last night. We also seemed to avoid injury, Barkate's ding aside.
 
I get that but Elon threatened one time last season and got a field goal out of it. Outside of that, they were completely shut down. That game was never in doubt, if not kinda boring.
 
This is what gives me some comfort, hopefully it does for others as well. Focus of the first game, particularly against an inferior team, is to build for the rest of the season. In doing so, you experiment with different schemes, evaluate different personnel combinations that you might not do again, put guys in early to get them real game experience as opposed to just garbage time, and try to keep schemes as vanilla as possible to keep your tricks for future games. If the goal was to beat Elon 55-10, I firmly believe we could have done that, but the goal is build for whole season, not blow the doors off of Elon and send a message to other teams. Sure, I would have loved to have been up 28-3 at half with dominant performances on both sides of the ball, but the fact that we weren’t isn’t necessarily cause to think the season is headed for the crapper. Offense already looks way better than last year, and I think the defense will be as good as it was last year after we clean up some poor tackling and pull back the substitutions a bit. The missed open field tackles are a concern but fixable with more game speed reps. I’m not some blue glasses, unbridled optimist either. I watched the double hail mary Maryland loss from the sideline and have watched or listened to every game since then, probably to the detriment of my mental health. Lots of PTSD here….
 
goFurman said:
Say what you will. That’s a bad FCS team. I don’t mean they are an FCS team. I mean they are bad in FCS - they aren’t receiving votes (not even ORV) in FCS polls. Should be a less than .500 FCS CAA team. And at one point I checked they were running for 4 yards per attempt. That’s a little scary

The ACC is 0 - 3 vs the spread already.

Duke minus 34. NO
NC State minus 12. NO
Stanford minus 2. NO
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I beg to differ with your assertion that they are a bad FCS team. This year's Elon is far superior to last year's, who ended up 5-3 in the CAA and 6-6 overall. They have the ingredients to be a force in the CAA and in the FCS: a dual-threat gamer of a QB, a strong OL, a stable of capable RBs and receivers (Magazu is a horse and a half) and a stout run defense with a ball-hawking LB corps. The cherry on top is their punter Jeff Yurk who led the FCS in yards-per-punt last season (and averaged nearly 50 vs Duke). Sure their secondary was exposed, but Duke's passing attack looks like it has a chance to be one of the best in the FBS. I wouldn't be so quick to write this Elon team off.
 
Mike Petrik said:
Mine was too until I thought about last year's Elon game and reflected a bit more. Paris95 (1:52 p.m.) captures my rebuttal very well, but I would also point out that Elon never would have been in this game but for our own unforced errors. A fumble on Elon's 15, a dropped TD pass, an overthrown TD pass, and a missed 44 field goal serve to disguise the fact that our offense had its way with Elon the entire game. Yes, we had some disappointments. Our defense was not as dominating as I would have hoped, and a couple impressive runs masked an otherwise tepid rushing performance. Yet, we easily outplayed Elon each and every quarter. Better overall than last year, really.
And I would add that our passing attack was magnificent.
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As impressive as the passing game was, and as inconsistent the defense was, I have to think we saw only chapter 1 of their playbooks.

I suspect we’ll see a more polished look on both sides VS Illinois, with plays that were not on display last night
 
HoKogan said:
Pretty much where I am, its going to take a much better performance against Illinois (even in a loss) to change my mind. That first half had my spider sense tingling, as in the Richmond Spiders. Jones dropping that easy touchdown pass gave me Charlotte flashbacks.
The defense seemed to be dialed in...until they allow that 3-20 conversion and then the wheels came off for 2 series. Both offense and defense seemed shaky, they were reacting instead of dictating the pace. It felt like early Cutcliffe teams in that this team might have talent, but they don't seem "together" in terms of execution. The OL looks no better this year than they were last year in terms of run blocking.
Leaving September 1-3 is a real possibility with a final 6-6 record being a lucky finish. Might be pessimistic and I hope to be wrong, would love to eat some crow seasoned with 11 herbs and spices. But if you've seen it before, you know the signs.
Click to expand...
HoKogan said:
Pretty much where I am, its going to take a much better performance against Illinois (even in a loss) to change my mind. That first half had my spider sense tingling, as in the Richmond Spiders. Jones dropping that easy touchdown pass gave me Charlotte flashbacks.
The defense seemed to be dialed in...until they allow that 3-20 conversion and then the wheels came off for 2 series. Both offense and defense seemed shaky, they were reacting instead of dictating the pace. It felt like early Cutcliffe teams in that this team might have talent, but they don't seem "together" in terms of execution. The OL looks no better this year than they were last year in terms of run blocking.
Leaving September 1-3 is a real possibility with a final 6-6 record being a lucky finish. Might be pessimistic and I hope to be wrong, would love to eat some crow seasoned with 11 herbs and spices. But if you've seen it before, you know the signs.
Click to expand...
This is an over-the-top, sky is falling take. I’m not saying you won’t be proven right, but you can lose a lot of money extrapolating from the first game of any season, good or bad. There were several disappointing moments, but saying you’ve seen this before is outlandish given our talent, strength and athleticism relative to the Dark Ages of the program.

My advice: Hang tight, give it another 2 weeks, then let’s see where we’re at.
 
martydoesntfoul said:
This is an over-the-top, sky is falling take. I’m not saying you won’t be proven right, but you can lose a lot of money extrapolating from the first game of any season, good or bad. There were several disappointing moments, but saying you’ve seen this before is outlandish given our talent, strength and athleticism relative to the Dark Ages of the program.

My advice: Hang tight, give it another 2 weeks, then let’s see where we’re at.
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I'm in agreement except for one thing.

You ended that last sentence with a preposition. :oops:
 
CrazyNotCrazie said:
Not to be Debbie Downer but I watched Sheppard and rather than the usual "awesome, he is going to be fun to watch for the next few years!" my thought was "how much will it cost to keep him when the big boys come calling?" I will forget those thoughts and enjoy this season and figure the rest out after the bowl game in January.

I'm glad the game was at home on a Thursday so we have a little extra time to get ready for Illinois. Not the prettiest performance but hopefully it gave the coaches a real blueprint of what we need to work on, rather than figuring it out in real time vs. a better opponent. And hopefully much of it is fixable, while we can continue doing some of the things we did well.
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maybe I should be worried about transfers (I do worrying well) but I'm not. Duke had among the fewest kids enter the porthole this year, and it wasn't an accident.....they're buying into what Manny is selling, which is a really good football/academic combo. Sheppard is a real talent, but there are even more prominent frosh on board now....I think Manny knows how to keep them happy.
 
Games like the one with Elon are important because they allow the coaches to see the most glaring team weaknesses before the more competitive games that follow. I was impressed with Elon's offensive coordinator taking advantage of Duke's defensive aggressiveness. The cut-backs and ability to get outside Duke's pass rush should lead to better defense in the future as our players learn to stay with their assignments.
 
martydoesntfoul said:
This is an over-the-top, sky is falling take. I’m not saying you won’t be proven right, but you can lose a lot of money extrapolating from the first game of any season, good or bad. There were several disappointing moments, but saying you’ve seen this before is outlandish given our talent, strength and athleticism relative to the Dark Ages of the program.

My advice: Hang tight, give it another 2 weeks, then let’s see where we’re at.
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I couldn't have said it better, Marty. It's way too early for that IMO, but then again...I'm an eternal optimist.
 
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