After last weekend’s comeback attempt against Boston College fell just four yards short in the last minute of the contest, Duke was officially eliminated from bowl game contention. With this season essentially finished, the Blue Devils’ coaches focused on building the team for next year at the postgame team meeting, sophomore running back Desmond Scott said.
“We have two games left, we are going to try to win those games, but the preparation for next year starts now,” he said.
According to head coach David Cutcliffe, there are still a few tasks the Blue Devils are trying to achieve this year, though. Among them are improving their 3-7 record, finishing higher than their current last-place standing in the ACC Coastal division and adding a statement victory to this year’s conference-play resume.
Duke (3-7, 1-5 in the ACC) is looking to make that statement Saturday at 1:30 p.m. versus Georgia Tech (5-5, 3-4) at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta.
Several of the Blue Devils’ defensive players said the matchup against the Yellow Jackets’ triple-option offense, a run-focused formation used by only a handful of college teams, is a favorable one for Duke. The Blue Devils have already played two other teams that run a similar offense, Army and Navy, and were pleased with their ability to stop the run. Duke beat bowl-eligible Navy 34-31 Oct. 30.
Since Duke knew going into the season that it would see the triple-option attack three times this year, the defense began preparing to defend against it last spring. Cutcliffe said the defense practiced against a triple-option offense every day during offseason workouts, giving the Blue Devils confidence in their game plan.
“Our coaches have given us a really, really great scheme against the triple-option,” freshman linebacker Kelby Brown said. “Watching us on film, you see how our defense and our schemes work with the triple option better than some other ones. You know if you and everyone else does their job, it’s probably going to stop the play.”
Georgia Tech runs a slightly different version of the triple option. The Yellow Jackets have more formations, different blocking systems and the advantage of several all-conference players at their disposal. Still, the Blue Devils aren’t planning to make any major changes on defense, Cutcliffe said.
“We’ll have little change-ups, but we aren’t going to do anything drastic because I think the worst thing to do against the option is to try to outsmart yourself,” he said. “When you start getting cute, they’re going to burn you.”
Georgia Tech head coach Paul Johnson is also preparing his squad for a different style of offense. Johnson told reporters in his weekly press conference that Duke has used the pistol formation—which is similar to the shotgun formation, expect with the running back lined up behind the quarterback—more this year. In his diagnosis of Duke’s new offense, Johnson didn’t mention freshman quarterback Brandon Connette, who Cutcliffe has said is an essential part of the Blue Devils’ offense. Instead, Johnson compared quarterback Sean Renfree to his predecessor Thaddeus Lewis, now in the NFL with the St. Louis Rams.
“They have changed a lot, they run a lot of pistol this year, and I don’t know that Renfree is the runner that [Thaddeus] Lewis was, but he has played well the last couple of games,” Johnson said. “He threw a lot of interceptions early, but he has cut back on that the last couple of games to give them a chance.”
A chance to pick up another conference win against the defending ACC champions would certainly fulfill Cutcliffe’s goal of making a statement, even if Duke has shifted focus to next season.
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