FB (Gator Bowl): Ole Miss 52, Duke 20

budwom said:
Definitely agree that runs, theoretically, would have made much more sense, but our run game has been just plain bad. When we managed to run only 59 yards on 27 attempts vs a mediocre FCS Elon team (that lost to Hampton and New Hamster), the writing was on the wall (as Mr. Petrik indicates above)
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Yea, I was screaming at my TV when Duke ran those two pass plays on third and one, deep inside the Ole Miss territory BUT, in retrospect, maybe the Duke OC (and Manny) thought they might be to fool Ole Miss, who would have normally thought a run play was coming, with a surprise pass, plus Duke's running game is anemic so why not try a surprise pass. Obviously, the strategy didn't work, but, in the overall scope of the game, I'm not sure it really mattered that much.
 
moonpie23 said:
i gotta hand it to Belin.....he got out there, knowing his replacement was already purchased to the tune of 8M and he played he heart out....regardless of the outcome, he faced a superior opponent and did his best for Duke......

he's got my respect...
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Totally agree here! I was MUCH impressed at how well he played, given the circumstances and his lack of real game experience. He definitely deserves our respect and I hope he is getting some decent NIL dollars for his devotion to Duke FB.
 
cbarry said:
Exactly. The offensive play calls in this game (as they’ve been all season) are just befuddling. Time for an OC upgrade.
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I'm assuming the last line is a joke? If not, then—dude, it was his first year as OC at Duke. The 2023 SMU offense that he coordinated was potent as heck. You don’t fire coaches after their first or second year in college football because you need to give them the opportunity to establish their system and bring in recruits/personnel who they feel are a good fit within that system.

One way of viewing this season is that our offense ended up being relatively productive despite the fact that a number of the key pieces didn’t really fit the system Brewer wants to implement, so he actually did a pretty solid job of adapting the system to the existing personnel. And judging an OC based upon isolated play calls in a handful of games tends to not be a good evaluation strategy, either. Taking the cited example, I can understand the intent behind calling a pass play early in this particular game with Belin under center on 3rd and 1—you're placing a high risk/high reward bet that Ole Miss is going to cheat to stuff the run which might give you the opportunity to surprise them early with a quick slant or similar route, an unexpected play call given a brand new starter. The gamble just didn't work.

Let’s see what Brewer does with the offense in the next couple of years. Darian Mensah has a skill set that fits much better with the scheme he wants to run. I think we’ll start to see an aggressive, balanced attack emerge next season. Couple that with the aggressive, disruptive defensive style that Diaz loves and next season could get pretty interesting.
 
One thing we should know by now is that Manny isn't afraid of making major changes if he thinks they are warranted, the switching of QBs for next year tells us that. His opinion of the OC (Brewer) is the one that counts, not ours, and if he thinks the man isn't doing the job I'm sure he'll address that. For the time being, he seems to be taking steps to upgrade our offensive personnel where warranted...QB, hard running RB, tight end, OL and more. Let's see how Brewer does with (hopefully) personnel better suited to run his offense.
 
wichitadevil said:
Look, I know a lot of people are saying this morning that Lane Kiffin is by far the biggest A-hole in all of sports and just a terrible, garbage human being, but let's be honest, he proved to the world last night, definitively, that Ole Miss was far more deserving of a CFP spot than the third string of the 5th best team in the ACC was.
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Best comment of the day! Thanks for the laugh!
 
Papa John said:
I'm assuming the last line is a joke? If not, then—dude, it was his first year as OC at Duke. The 2023 SMU offense that he coordinated was potent as heck. You don’t fire coaches after their first or second year in college football because you need to give them the opportunity to establish their system and bring in recruits/personnel who they feel are a good fit within that system.

One way of viewing this season is that our offense ended up being relatively productive despite the fact that a number of the key pieces didn’t really fit the system Brewer wants to implement, so he actually did a pretty solid job of adapting the system to the existing personnel. And judging an OC based upon isolated play calls in a handful of games tends to not be a good evaluation strategy, either. Taking the cited example, I can understand the intent behind calling a pass play early in this particular game with Belin under center on 3rd and 1—you're placing a high risk/high reward bet that Ole Miss is going to cheat to stuff the run which might give you the opportunity to surprise them early with a quick slant or similar route, an unexpected play call given a brand new starter. The gamble just didn't work.

Let’s see what Brewer does with the offense in the next couple of years. Darian Mensah has a skill set that fits much better with the scheme he wants to run. I think we’ll start to see an aggressive, balanced attack emerge next season. Couple that with the aggressive, disruptive defensive style that Diaz loves and next season could get pretty interesting.
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Brewer was given a 1 year title promotion before he left SMU; Casey Woods was the SMU OC before, during and after Brewer. Woods is the son of Sparky Woods.
 
Stray Gator said:
We were at the game, and I thought the decision to try passing plays on third-and-1 and fourth-and -1 after we got the interception return into their territory was a monumental mistake. With a chance to grab some early momentum in a game where we knew they were going to score a lot, it felt like a wasted opportunity and a significant shift in fortunes from which Duke never recovered. Still, the biggest disappointment to me was the defense, which had been strong all season but seemed a step behind and slow to recover all night.
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Others have commented on this but my two cents is Henry was better than 50% passing. Not sure our running game would gain 1 yard 50% of the time. We barely averaged 2 yards a carry last night and the “long” run of the night was 8 yards. With their defense and our run game I can’t criticize the coach for electing to throw the ball. Agree completely that failing to capitalize on the interception was deflating.

Not sure it has been mentioned here, but I was at the game and the biggest surprise of the night to me was that we had more fans in attendance than Ole Miss. Interest in the program has definitely grown over the last three years.
 
TheDevilMadeMeDoIt said:
Not sure it has been mentioned here, but I was at the game and the biggest surprise of the night to me was that we had more fans in attendance than Ole Miss. Interest in the program has definitely grown over the last three years.
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It seemed that way to me as well, or at least pretty darn close. Which is impressive given the size of the schools and alumni base.
 
OldPhiKap said:
It seemed that way to me as well, or at least pretty darn close. Which is impressive given the size of the schools and alumni base.
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The fact that Kiffin kept implying that playing in the Gator Bowl was an insult since they belonged in the CFP probably had something to do with their attendance. But I’m very happy to hear that Duke fans turned out!
 
TheDevilMadeMeDoIt said:
Others have commented on this but my two cents is Henry was better than 50% passing. Not sure our running game would gain 1 yard 50% of the time. We barely averaged 2 yards a carry last night and the “long” run of the night was 8 yards. With their defense and our run game I can’t criticize the coach for electing to throw the ball. Agree completely that failing to capitalize on the interception was deflating.

Not sure it has been mentioned here, but I was at the game and the biggest surprise of the night to me was that we had more fans in attendance than Ole Miss. Interest in the program has definitely grown over the last three years.
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I think that to evaluate the options fairly, you need to take into consideration the context: Duke had just seized momentum by intercepting a pass in the end zone and returning it into Ole Miss territory, then completing a 9-yard pass on second down. At that point, Duke had not yet attempted a running play, so no one had any idea how successful the short-yardage rushing attack might be; meanwhile, the Rebels' defense was still somewhat unsettled, and perhaps a little on its heels. If you can't pick up the needed yard with a running back on third down, you can either go for it on fourth down with the "tush push" -- Belin is a tall, sturdy QB, who doesn't seem reluctant to lower his head and take contact -- or if there's more than a yard, kick the field goal and get points on the board first. I understand an argument can be made to support another pass attempt as a potentially unexpected ploy. But those two calls coming at that point in the game, and in that situation, just didn't make sense to me; and I can assure you that I wasn't the only one in the Duke section left scratching my head with an incredulous expression.
 
Stray Gator said:
.... those two calls coming at that point in the game, and in that situation, just didn't make sense to me; and I can assure you that I wasn't the only one in the Duke section left scratching my head with an incredulous expression.
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I count 6 of us head-scratchers in the game thread who thought those calls “bizarre.” (Posts 238-239)
 
gumbomoop said:
I count 6 of us head-scratchers in the game thread who thought those calls “bizarre.” (Posts 238-239)
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if you watched all of our games this year (and perhaps you did) you shouldn't be surprised at how bad our run game was...two yards/carry vs Elon pretty much gave us advance warning. All year long we got stuffed on the ground on third and short...
 
I don’t know how it looked on tv, but from the cheap-ish seats after a long tailgate of drinking:
  • Henry had a few nice drives and passes for sure, and was a heck of a lot more mobile than Maalik. I was proud of the effort and heart he showed.
  • Henry overthrew most if not all of his long passes, and missed a good number of shorter passes that Maalik (and I think Mensah) make easily. Perhaps it is lack of experience, perhaps it is a difference in ability, but they were just flat-out poor passes.
  • The offensive play-calling was odd. I am not down on Brewer given his need to work in a new QB, rusty RB, and facing one of the best defenses in the country. “Bold strategy Cotton, let’s see if it works.” It didn’t. But I don’t blame him for trying even though it left me scratching my head a bit at times.
  • Overall, the difference in size of players on both sides of the ball was stunning. Stunning.
  • Ole Miss has one of the most disruptive defenses in the country, and I thought our O-line performed well above my expectations.
  • Ole Miss ran a hurry-up offense with a lot of looks that seemed to confuse our defense. You could see it in how our secondary was trying to figure out coverages, and they couldn’t get off the field because there were few substitutions possible. Ole Miss’ offensive play-calling, planning and execution was an objective thing of beauty (unfortunately).
  • our inability to get off the field on third downs was the ultimate killer. Credit Ole Miss — I don’t think it was bad defense (although ultimately perhaps tired defense). Their QB Dart is a real NFL-level talent and it showed.
  • if we want to play big boy football, this is what it looks like. We either embrace the challenge or not. It’s like the famous story of Coach K’s first season after getting whooped up at UVa — “Here’s to never forgetting.” Fight fight fight fight fight.
  • CB&B does an incredible tailgate and did not take donations. He did it for love and fun. Perhaps the nicest guy I’ve ever met. Rock on.
FWIW.
 
gumbomoop said:
I count 6 of us head-scratchers in the game thread who thought those calls “bizarre.” (Posts 238-239)
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It’s like the two point conversion attempt vs SMU. It works your brilliant. It doesn’t and what the heck were you doing. Even Bob Green quit saying run the ball this year!

On a different subject I left the game in the fourth quarter due to a 600 plus mile drive yesterday. Having now watched the kick off return for a TD what a thing of beauty. They even showed Kiffin’s face afterwards and it looked like he had eaten a sour pickle.

Who by the way had us in the Gator Bowl in Manny’s first year ??? GoDuke!
 
budwom said:
Ya, there's the end of season conundrum. Lose one more game, get a lesser bowl with a lesser opponent...Win and you get Zippi, as tough an opponent as possible, just out of our weight class for the time being.
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I'll always take the better regular season record and the chance for something great over more losses before December.
We got smoked in Jacksonville, but just playing that bowl game in January was a first for the program. I'm a very proud Duke Football fan.
 
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