David Cutcliffe was happy with his team's energy and effort in its first preseason scrimmage Saturday night. One more story emanating from the 80-play intrasquad could not have pleased him.
Re'quan Boyette, Duke's top returning running back, left the game with a leg injury early in the scrimmage. The extent to the injury is not yet known, as he is still receiving evaluation. We'll bring you more information when we hear it, but if this injury is serious, it could hinder Duke's offensive attack and affect its ability to post 30 points per game, one goal Cutcliffe has vocalized.
MORE: So much for all of those gaudy preseason polls. The Blue Devils were ranked as high as No. 79 in the country by Sports Illustrated, a media outlet that also predicted Duke to finish second-to-last in the Coastal Division in front of Georgia Tech. But The Wizard of Odds, which dubs itself "A college football site for winners" and is managed by former LA Times employee Jay Christensen, ranked Duke as the 24th-worst team in the country. Wendell Barnhouse writes that Duke's two most winnable games are James Madison and Navy (no argument here), but we think we can name more than 24 teams that will fare worse than the Blue Devils. Can you?
--by Ben Cohen
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