Duke Football plagued by mistakes

I attended Saturday’s Duke-UVa football game in Charlottesville, Va., with a group of eight other young Duke alums, and we were dismayed to see that the Blue Devils continue to be plagued by basic football errors, namely dropped passes and missed field goals. The Chronicle’s coverage of the game highlighted missed assignments on defense as a reason for the loss to the Cavaliers, and those instances surely didn’t help the team’s cause Saturday, but Duke could have easily scored 41 points and remained in bowl contention. If not for two touchdown drops by Donovan Varner, a drop on a critical third down by Cooper Helfet, two missed field goals by Will Snyderwine and the decision not to trust Snyderwine with another kick—Duke instead got stopped in the red zone on fourth down—the Blue Devils would be 4-6. And if David Cutcliffe’s staff had addressed those issues earlier in the year, the team would be a whole lot better than that.

Gabe Starosta,
Trinity 2010 and former sports editor for The Chronicle