MIAMI — By most conventional standards, the Blue Devils were trounced Saturday at Sun Life Stadium.
They were down two touchdowns after just over eight minutes. They trailed 28-7 at the half. They wound up losing 49-14.
If you look beyond the obvious numbers, however, you will see that Duke did not just lose to the Hurricanes for their fourth straight defeat. The team beat itself—through a combination of costly penalties and squandered third down conversions.
“We found ways to beat ourselves,” Sean Renfree said after the loss. “We had little penalties, stupid things by me that just killed us. And if you want to be a good team, you’ve got to convert on third down.”
It would be an understatement to say that penalties killed the Blue Devils’ momentum on their first two drives.
After Miami took just 2:24 to score its first touchdown, Duke’s halfback Desmond Scott got the call for the team’s first play, taking it off the right tackle for two yards. Head coach David Cutcliffe went to him again on second down, and the junior picked up seven yards to put the Blue Devils at 3rd-and-1. Then Cooper Helfet jumped early. False start, Duke. And on third-and-6, Renfree hit Scott for a five-yard completion, just short of a first down. With the punting unit on the field, Nick Sink jumped early, giving up another five yards. Two false starts, drive No. 1 over.
After an eight-play, 65-yard drive by Miami led to another touchdown, Duke retook the field, and wideout Donovan Varner picked up six on a first down rush. On second down, Scott made a nice move for the first down and much more. Yellow flashed on the field, though—a holding call on lineman Dave Harding. Another costly penalty, and another Blue Devil drive over.
“Unfortunately, I thought we had a good plan offensively, but we stopped ourselves with penalties on the first two possessions,” Cutcliffe said. “When you get behind a team like that, things start changing. They had their best day, and we had our worst day in certain areas.”
Duke would ultimately tally six penalties in the game, enough to critically hurt the team in a game against a bigger and more athletic Miami team. As Cutcliffe said, when you have penalties like that, “you’re not going to be successful.”
Despite going a respectable 6-for-14 on third downs, Cutcliffe and his players identified the failed conversions in critical spots as a major reason for the loss. The Blue Devils had a nearly perfect drive early in the second quarter, balancing seven rushing and seven passing plays and eating over six minutes off the clock en route to cutting the Hurricanes lead to 14. Four times during that drive, Renfree successfully hit receivers for 10+ yard completions, finding Brandon Braxton for a 10-yard pickup, Conner Vernon for a 13-yard gain, Scott for 13 yards and Helfet for a red zone reception in which the big tight end sloughed off several defenders for a 14-yard pickup. The quarterback and his receivers looked more in sync than they would the rest of the day. That would change soon.
After a quick Duke touchdown to start the second half, the Blue Devils’ real troubles with third downs began. Early in the third quarter, with the team at midfield, Duke’s receivers lined up five-wide and had to go three yards to move the chains. Varner ran a slant down the middle, and Renfree had him open, but he could not connect with his receiver.
“I had two easy completions there and couldn’t get either,” the quarterback said. “Stupid.”
With the Blue Devils reeling from a fourth straight loss, Duke faces Virginia, which will be coming off a bye week, in Charlottesville next week. For Vernon, the focus in practice in the upcoming days will be simple.
“Fixing the silly mistakes,” Vernon said. “No dumb penalties and turnovers. It kills plays, it kills drives. We’re still doing it more than we need to.”
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