ATLANTA — Saturday afternoon’s game against Georgia Tech was the Blue Devils’ to lose. And they did, falling 30-20 at Bobby Dodd Stadium.
Duke (3-8, 1-6 in the ACC) came out strong in the first half with stellar defense and a relatively successful offense, managing one touchdown and two field goals after the Yellow Jackets (6-5, 4-4) took off with an early 3-0 lead. The two teams left the field at halftime with Duke leading Georgia Tech 13-6.
Coming back onto the field after the break, the Blue Devils’ offense looked promising, managing three impressive third-down conversions that brought Duke again into the red zone with eight minutes left in the third quarter. But then, much like in the previous week against Boston College, once inside the 20-yard line, the offense fell apart.
Head coach David Cutcliffe went with freshman Brandon Connette under center in the red zone, even after a subpar showing the game before. After a failed reverse from wide receiver Donovan Varner at Georgia Tech’s 14-yard line resulted in the Blue Devils losing six yards, Connette went to the air. He couldn’t find his target, and cornerback Mario Butler picked it off, rushing 85 yards for a touchdown that gave the Yellow Jackets the lead—and the game’s momentum.
“We’re not going to second-guess ourselves when we’ve got a guy open, and we’re going to look at the tapes and see what’s wrong. But I’m sure we could’ve executed better,” Cutcliffe said. “That’s on me, that was the one I was pushing on us to run because they were pressuring, and I thought we had a layup pass out there.”
With that touchdown, Georgia Tech rallied back, scoring two touchdowns on the team’s next three offensive drives. The second score came through the air, as the Yellow Jackets exploited the Blue Devils’ lack of size in the secondary.
“A lot of games are decided in the fourth quarter… and we just need to find the next level to finish this game because that’s two weeks in a row,” Cutcliffe said. “They really didn’t stop us offensively, we stopped ourselves.”
Duke’s last scoring drive came just over two minutes into the fourth quarter on a 37-yard touchdown pass to senior Austin Kelly from sophomore quarterback Sean Renfree. The Blue Devils were presented with multiple opportunities to take the lead later in the fourth quarter but failed to capitalize by throwing incomplete passes and missing two field goals.
With 10 minutes left in the game, Connette again came in for Renfree at Georgia Tech’s 16-yard line on third down. The quarterback draw resulted in a no-gain, and the Blue Devils decided to go for a 34-yard field goal.
Although usually incredibly consistent, Will Snyderwine missed the game-tying field goal with nine minutes left to play, snapping his streak of 18 consecutive made field goals. Georgia Tech made little progress on the following series until a long pass on third down from its own 21-yard line led to a 79-yard touchdown score for wideout Stephen Hill to extend the lead to 30-20.
“We drove the ball really well there [in the second half] at certain points, but not converting on third downs, that’s huge,” said Renfree, who completed 30-of-41 passes for 334 yards and a touchdown. “Again not being able to convert in the red zone, that hurt us.”
The Blue Devils finished 5-for-13 on third-down conversions and failed to score a touchdown in their three trips into the red zone. And though the Blue Devils had 22 first downs and gained 443 yards, they were unable to come through when it mattered, failing to convert on important plays deep in Georgia Tech territory.
The Duke defense, on the other hand, held strong the entire game, doing an effective job of containing the triple-option offense and preventing the Yellow Jackets from capitalizing on third downs. Even when Georgia Tech had the momentum swinging its way, the Blue Devils were able to force multiple fumbles and only fell short on a few pass plays because of their small size.
“It’s been a lot of off-season time, and this is going to be ongoing, with Georgia Tech in our division and in our league, and we’ve had two games against Navy and Army in the last two years,” Cutcliffe said about Duke’s success defending the option. “We have a good system, our players understand it, and they’ve done a nice job of executing. What we need is more numbers to deal with, and we’re asking a lot of our defensive front. As we grow our depth, that’s going to help us even more.”
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