Duke’s rivalry clash with Wake Forest quickly turned into a fast-paced shootout. But when the Blue Devils needed to get stops, the defense couldn’t come through.
Riley Skinner and the Demon Deacons (5-7, 3-5 in the ACC) had their way against Duke Saturday at Wallace Wade Stadium, beating the Blue Devils for the 10th consecutive time, 45-34. Skinner led scoring drives early and often for Wake Forest, completing 28-of-38 passes for 372 yards and a career-high five touchdowns. Duke had difficulty pressuring the quarterback, giving the four-year starter plenty of time to pick apart the Blue Devil secondary.
“We really didn’t have an answer to stop their offense,” head coach David Cutcliffe said. “Their execution was excellent, particularly in the second half.”
The Blue Devils (5-7, 3-5) had their opportunities to get back into the game late, but could never come up with a key stop. After pulling within one possession at 28-20 in the third quarter, kicker Nick Maggio knocked the ensuing kickoff out of bounds, giving the Demon Deacons prime field position. Skinner took full advantage, connecting with Marshall Williams for 49 yards. Duke cornerback Leon Wright stripped Williams right in front of the goal line, but the Wake Forest receiver recovered the ball in the end zone for a touchdown and a two-score lead.
After once again moving to within eight points with 10 minutes remaining, Duke was unable to stop the Demon Deacons’ rushing game, and a stable of running backs repeatedly found openings on the left side to keep the clock moving and the Blue Devil offense off the field. On its final offensive scoring drive, Wake Forest chewed up over five minutes of game time on 11 plays, tacking on a field goal to put the game seemingly out of reach.
“Every time we would kind of surge, they answered,” Cutcliffe said. “I didn’t think they could run the ball on us, and they really shouldn’t have. We had a stretch in there when our defense didn’t really play well at all.”
While Duke struggled, the Demon Deacons’ defensive unit came through with the biggest play of the game. With the Blue Devils down 11 with five minutes left, Thaddeus Lewis was forced to air it out on 4th-and-2 from the Duke 33-yard line. Lewis’s ball was just a little late to freshman wideout Conner Vernon, and Wake Forest’s Alex Frye stepped in for the interception, bringing it back for a 37-yard touchdown. That play gave the Demon Deacons a 45-27 lead with 3:26 to play, ending all hope of a Blue Devil comeback.
Barring that one misstep, Lewis had yet another fantastic outing in his final game in blue and white. The Blue Devils’ signal caller, despite being hobbled by injury, notched his seventh 300-yard outing of the season—a school record—as he kept pace with Skinner in the first half.
Duke struck first as Lewis found sophomore Donovan Varner out of the slot for a 56-yard touchdown pass on the third play of the game. Varner finished with 11 catches for 174 yards and two touchdowns and became only the the third receiver in school history with 1,000 receiving yards in a season.
Skinner fired right back, completing two passes for 50 yards to tie the score after four plays. The two teams traded touchdown passes once more, and the score was tied at 14 apiece just seven minutes into the game. The Blue Devils’ quick-strike offense eventually slowed as Wake Forest switched from pressuring the quarterback to dropping back into a zone, making it harder for Lewis to find open receivers.
“They bracketed the middle a lot,” Varner said. “We have a great corps of receivers that were able to get open, but sometimes we just couldn’t execute. That hurt us a bit.”
Despite the loss, Lewis still finished off his career in style, completing 28-of-47 passes for 387 yards and three touchdowns, resembling his form from early in the conference season. The Duke quarterback threw for 10,065 yards in four years and joined N.C. State alum Philip Rivers as the second quarterback in ACC history to top the 10,000-yard mark.
But in the end, it was a familiar story for the Blue Devils, who gave the Demon Deacons a tough fight but couldn’t come through at the end of the game. In Duke’s seven losses, the team was within one possession in the final quarter five times, but ended up on the wrong side of the result each time.
“It all boils down to who can execute,” Wright said. “They made some plays and we didn’t. We didn’t make enough plays to win the game.”
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