Duke football displays its resilience in improbable comeback attempt

Allowing nearly 600 yards of offense and throwing four interceptions is not typically a part of the recipe for winning a football game.

In a contest that head coach David Cutcliffe said was nothing short of "bizarre," Duke managed to claw its way back from a deficit of 20 points or more twice and still had a chance to win the game in the closing minutes.

"I told our squad that they represented the Duke football program well from the standpoint of how hard this team played for 60 minutes," head coach David Cutcliffe said. "It may be the most unusual game that I've ever been a part of—off the top of my head it probably is."

After redshirt junior quarterback Brandon Connette threw two picks in his first three pass attempts, Pittsburgh was set up with a short field for some easy first-quarter points. But it wasn't until Panther quarterback Tom Savage flexed his muscles in the vertical passing game that Duke looked as though it would be in for a long afternoon.

Savage burned the Blue Devil defense on back-to-back plays, hooking up with Devin Street and Tyler Boyd in the span of 56 seconds to give Pittsburgh a 27-7 advantage.

Despite three second-quarter touchdowns from Jamison Crowder, Duke still could not contain the Panther offense, allowing a staggering 468 yards of total offense in the first half. The little momentum the Blue Devils could muster in the second quarter was erased by a last-second touchdown drive by Pittsburgh to close the half and 14 unanswered points to begin the third quarter.

Trailing by 23 points, the game once against seemed out of reach for Duke, but after the worst half of football it has played this season, the Blue Devil defense helped the team to claw back into the game, holding Pittsburgh to just 130 yards in the second half.

Cutcliffe often reduces efficient football to five keys for his Duke team—alignment, assignment, effort, aggressiveness and finishing. The Blue Devils could not have struggled more in the opening stages of Saturday's game, but one thing they did was finish strong.

"We're going to finish. That's something that we're priding ourselves on," redshirt senior cornerback Ross Cockrell said. "Coach talks about... five things that you have to do to win the game, and the last of that five is finish. We did that [Saturday], but unfortunately we didn't make enough plays."

In his weekly teleconference Sunday, Cutcliffe identified 17 plays that allowed the Panthers to rack up 423 yards of offense. Aside from those explosive plays, the Blue Devil head coach said that his team allowed just 2.8 yards per play on its other 62 defensive snaps.

"We executed well at times on both sides of the ball at times, but it seems like we're one of those teams," Cutcliffe said. "We have a lapse in execution, it tends to blow up, not just be a non-productive play."

Even when Connette tossed his third and fourth interceptions of the afternoon to put Duke down 58-41 with 8:30 remaining, an errant long snap on a punt set the Blue Devils up with a short field and allowed them to pull within three in the closing minutes.

In a game that featured staggering offensive numbers and crucial turnovers, Duke did not just find a way to make this wild shootout a contest as a clock ticked down—the Blue Devils were actually in a position to win the game.

"I think the second half we definitely grew as a team. Second half, we came out there and we fought back—we fought back hard," redshirt senior defensive end Kenny Anunike said. "We just said let's go out there and just hit them back in the mouth. They came out swinging in the first and we just went in at halftime, came back out and we were ready to go."

But close was not close enough for a Duke team that was able to put each phase of the game together at different points, but simply made too many mistakes to come away with a win.

When asked whether or not he was happy posting a career-high six touchdowns and 55 points on Pittsburgh, Connette did not hesitate in his response.

"We needed to score 59," he said.