COLLEGE PARK, MD — Sometimes even a perfect game plan doesn’t guarantee success.
Saturday night in College Park, Duke’s defense had arguably its best game of the season. The Blue Devils allowed only 294 yards and 21 points—both season lows—while gaining over 100 more yards than the Terrapins.
Duke still lost to Maryland, though, by committing too many turnovers and failing to take advantage of chances to put the game away early.
“Tonight we did some of the same things we’ve done all season and we got the same results,” head coach David Cutcliffe said. “We lost the turnover margin and gave up points in the kicking game.”
The final score obscured the fact that the Blue Devils did outplay the Terrapins in the game. Duke ran 79 plays to only 65 for Maryland and was generally successful at getting the Terrapins off the field, forcing eight punts while only punting four times.
The solid effort was undone by the Blue Devils’ many mistakes. Duke’s two turnovers, in contrast to the Terrapins’ turnover-free game, bring the Blue Devils to a minus-five turnover margin on the season and minus-seven on their current four-game losing streak.
Like turnover margin, performance in the red zone makes and breaks teams. On Saturday, the Blue Devils were broken. While the defense’s performance in the red zone can be improved, it was the offense’s failure to convert opportunities that really undermined Duke’s chances.
This was especially apparent in the first half, when the Blue Devils came away with three field goals and an interception on four red zone opportunities. The final line was four-of-five red zone opportunities converted by Duke’s offense, a figure that is insufficient to the whole story.
By the midpoint of the second quarter, with the Blue Devils up 9-0, Maryland’s crowd was frustrated enough to turn on their beloved Terrapins, booing successively louder on a three-and-out. Duke took over at midfield—their best starting field position of the day—and quickly moved to the Maryland 19 on just three plays. But the drive stalled, and Sean Renfree forced a third-down pass to Conner Vernon which ended up in Terrapin Antwine Perez’s hands. A touchdown there—or in any of the Blue Devils’ previous opportunities—would have given Duke a double-digit lead.
Instead, O’Brien led the Terrapins on an eight-play, 80-yard touchdown drive, stirring the anxious crowd into a frenzy, chewing up most of the remaining time in the half and cutting the Blue Devil lead to a mere two points. After out-rushing Maryland and passing for more than twice as many yards as the Terrapins, Duke only had a shaky two-point lead at half time.
In the second half, the Blue Devils surrendered two touchdowns on plays of more than 70 yards with undisciplined mistakes. First, Tony Logan scored on an 84-yard punt return to give Maryland a six-point lead. Then Da’Rel Scott caught a screen pass on third-and-seven and took it to the house. Sophomore safety Walt Canty and freshman cornerback Ross Cockrell both had opportunities to wrap up the ballcarrier near the line of scrimmage, but Scott was able to break both tackles.
“On that play we had him,” Canty said. “That’s something we need to work on—our open field tackles.”
Dropped passes, particularly in key spots, was the final area Duke made mistakes in. Against Wake Forest, two of Renfree’s passes hit his receivers in the hands before getting deflected up for interceptions. On Saturday, there weren’t any interceptions off of tipped passes, but drops still played a pivotal role. On second-and-fifteen from the Maryland 38 with under two minutes remaining, Renfree dropped back to pass and threw over the middle to a wide-open Donovan Varner. Varner, who had enough room to run to the endzone untouched, dropped the ball. With another shot on fourth-and-15, Renfree again threw the ball into the middle of Maryland’s defense to Austin Kelly. But Kelly was covered tightly by Perez, who managed to jar the ball out of Kelly’s hands.
After the game, the team was left to wonder about what could have been.
“If we catch a few more balls it could’ve been a different game,” Cutcliffe added. “We’ve played two conference games. We should’ve won both of them. That’s frustrating.”
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