By JONATHAN GANZ
To win a football game, you have to be able to tackle your opponent.
Early this season, the Duke football team has often gotten to--but seldom tackled--its opponents. The result is a 2-3 record and a theme for this week's practices: return to fundamentals.
"We must get better fundamentally in order to have any kind of consistency and success, and that's where we are," Blue Devil head coach Fred Goldsmith said. "It's been frustrating--it's been frustrating for myself, the staff and the players. But it's something we will do, and each day we'll try to get better at it. I just felt that we took a step back in everything last Saturday night."
An increased emphasis is being put on the essentials of winning football in practice both offensively and defensively. Goldsmith knows that he must improve and improve quickly before Saturday's game against Georgia Tech.
The Yellow Jackets, who finished 1-10 last year, have resurrected their program by returning to the basics under first-year head coach George O'Leary. Abandoning a pro-style offense, Tech (2-2, 1-1 in the Atlantic Coast Conference) is running the ball on more than half of its plays and is operating out of the two-back, I-formation.
Duke has struggled to stop opponents' running games this season. It has allowed an average of almost 300 yards per game. Even more distressing for the Blue Devils is that many of those yards have come after an opponent breaks a tackle at or near the line of scrimmage.
The defense has faced this problem since the first game of the season. In the 70-26 loss to Florida State to open the season, Duke found itself not only letting the Seminoles break out of tackles, but also breaking down its confidence.
"I think that the Florida State game definitely had a negative effect on the team," senior defensive tackle Mike Stallmeyer said. "Just in comparison to last year, when we beat Maryland to start the season, and we got on a roll and were able to build a lot of confidence. We finished out the season with a lot of confidence, and we came into this season with even more confidence and high expectations.
"Then we went down to Florida State for the first game, and pretty much got blown out. I think that put a question mark in the back of everyone's head as to how good we were going to be this year. Although everyone was saying, `That's Florida State, and we'll put it behind us,' I think that playing them in the first game of the year did have a negative impact on the whole team."
Another major area of concern for Duke is its running game. The ground attack has been inconsistent throughout the season. After opening the season with a strong effort against FSU, the Blue Devils have struggled with getting key yards in running situations.
On Saturday against Navy, Duke twice had the ball inside of the Midshipmen's five-yard line. But neither time was it able to punch it into the end zone. In addition to their woes close to the goal line, the Blue Devils managed only 17 yards rushing on 29 attempts. Goldsmith knows that must change if Duke is to beat Georgia Tech on Saturday.
The Blue Devils reached a low for this season with their 30-9 loss to Navy at home. The defeat showed all too well the problems Duke has had this season--problems it did not expect to have to worry about.
"For the first time in seven years that I've been a head coach, that's the first game I've lost like that," Goldsmith said. "A game you know you should have won, felt like you had better players, felt like you were outexecuted.
"I am just really disappointed, and yet, there's some things that we can do a lot better at on both sides of the ball that I've seen these players do. We just have to put it together in a consistent manner."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.