White 21, Blue 17, FINAL: And that's the ballgame. White Team, led by Renfree, pulled it out in the end. Overall, I think that the offense is definitely more advanced than the defense-- Duke's come a long way from the 7-0 defensive struggle of the Spring Game last year. The passing game looked excellent, and there were several big plays pulled off by both sides that the Blue Devils simply couldn't do last year.
My apologies-- this was my first spring game ever, so I didn't really know what to expect. Anyway, about to head to a post-game press conference with Cutcliffe. More quotes to come from him later.
White 21, Blue 17, 5:25 left in 4th quarter: The White Team stopped the drive, forcing Blue Team to kick a 28 yard field goal. White Team has the ball now, and Tony Jackson just found a seam for a nice run. He was brought down at the 48 yard line by Zach Asack. Asack seems to have a lot of tackles in the game-- you'd never know he was a quarterback last year.
White 21, Blue 14, 8:58 left in 4th quarter: Lewis just hit Varner with about a 35 yard pass. The Blue Team is driving, utilizing the no huddle offense that worked well last season.
White 21, Blue 14, HALFTIME: Sorry about the delay, had some technical difficulties with the ol' Macbook. The first half saw very good performances from both the quarterbacks-- Lewis had several good passes to Austin Kelly and Donovan Varner, while redshirt freshman Sean Renfree also looked comfortable out on the gridiron. He hit Danny Parker with a bullet in the back corner of the end zone to put the score at 14-14. Granted, both quarterbacks are not getting hit, but Cutcliffe must be happy with the play of his two passers.
Speaking of Cutcliffe-- he just spoke to the crowd. After giving out several awards, including the "Blue Devil Heart Award" which went to Vincent Ray, Cutcliffe saluted the fairly sizable crowd, saying that today was "an awesome day for Duke football". He added, "I see our football program becoming the kind of program this institution deserves" and "Blue Devil football is here to stay."
Blue 0, White 0, 7:27 left in 1st quarter: Hey guess who just tackled running back Patrick Kurunwune? That would be former backup quarterback Zach Asack, now a safety.
Blue 0, White 0, 9:23 left in 1st quarter: Thaddeus Lewis's team was just forced to punt, after a series that saw a very nice pass to Johnny Williams, who showed off his post-catch abilities for a nice run. For some reason, there are no run-backs after the punts. This game is confusing me.
PREGAME: The announcer just came on with a roaring, "It's time for football!" There's a pretty good crowd here at Wally Wade, most alumni. It's very weird to see a game here without the usual almost-comatose post-Tailgate crowd, but overall, its a pretty good atmosphere for a spring football game.
Thaddeus Lewis is quarterbacking for the Blue Team. He's wearing a green jersey, for some reason.
The Blue Team is always offense, and the White Team is always defense-- a little different from the normal spring game.
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