After two straight losses at their home stadium, the Blue Devil seniors patched together an impressive performance to send their class out in style.
Duke scored on 7-of-13 drives Saturday in its 41-21 win against Wake Forest Saturday night at Wallace Wade Stadium, and much of the momentum came from 28 student-athletes experiencing the final game of their collegiate careers.
“There’s not enough things I can say to compliment our seniors [and] their accomplishments since I’ve been here,” Duke head coach David Cutcliffe said. “This is a great moment for Duke football, a great moment for the university. We’ve got a lot to look forward to.... [This was] a hard-fought victory. Certainly I knew Wake would come out and play well, and they did, but I’m very proud of our team for finishing the way they did.”
Adding to the end-of-an-era atmosphere was the construction equipment ready and waiting behind the south end zone to tear up the field and begin the stadium’s renovations.
On the Blue Devils’ opening drive, redshirt senior Anthony Boone passed exclusively to classmates Josh Snead and Jamison Crowder. The trio combined for 43 of the drive’s 47 yards, including the 4-yard dash to the end zone by Boone to put his team up 7-0.
“I told the freshmen, ‘You watch our seniors play. As you move forward, understand what it means to be a Duke football player,’” Cutcliffe said. “A lot of these guys have changed what that meaning is. I’m happy for them—really happy.”
Eleven seniors started the evening on either offense or defense and led a team looking almost unrecognizable from the one they joined four years ago.
Duke had just three wins in both the 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons. Fast-forward to Saturday night, and the same group of athletes can celebrate 19 wins in the past two years, the first time any Blue Devil squad has won nine-plus games in back-to-back seasons.
“We’re 9-3 now. When I was a freshman, we were 3-9, so it’s really changed,” senior linebacker David Helton said. “It’s really incredible to walk out on the last game in this stadium knowing how much has changed in my four years—it’s truly incredible…. It’s really a great class, and I’m very proud of them.”
The squad can boast more team achievements such as three consecutive bowl games and last season’s 10-win explosion, but many players can also look back on individual careers with pride. Saturday night’s win gave redshirt senior wide receiver Isaac Blakeney a career-high seven receptions and 107 receiving yards, and Boone’s 275 yards in the air were a season-high. Crowder’s 3,437 career receiving yards after Saturday night moved him to the top of the ACC charts, helped along by a season-best 52-yard touchdown run at the end of the first quarter.
“A lot of it was just senior night,” Crowder said. “We had to come out here and play hard and connect, and we were able to do that.”
On the other side of the ball, Helton and safety Jeremy Cash maintained pressure on true freshman quarterback John Wolton. The Demon Deacon starter was sacked twice by Cash and hurried three times by Helton, and the two defensive leaders combined for 13 tackles, working with the rest of the defense to hold the Wake Forest rushing effort to 2.7 yards per carry.
Many underclassmen brought hope for the future Duke squad in the wake of such an impressive senior performance. Junior running back Shaquille Powell led the team’s rushing effort with 63 yards on 16 carries. Redshirt sophomore safety DeVon Edwards totaled 13 tackles, the most of any Blue Devil defender. Freshman running back Shaun Wilson added 22 yards to his season total, rising to second place in the conference for yards rushed as a rookie. His 590 yards have included five touchdowns, the third-most by a freshman in Duke history.
“[I tell the younger players] to continually get better,” Helton said. “That all sounds very simple, but that’s what we’ve been doing here ever since we’ve been here—continually getting better, each and every day, even when things go bad.”
At the end of regulation, players and coaches remained on the field and welcomed fans to join them in celebrating the groundbreaking of renovations to Wallace Wade Stadium that will be completely finished by 2016. The field and surrounding horseshoe stands first opened in 1929 as the first sports facility on the school’s West Campus.
In 1967, the stadium was renamed to honor Wallace Wade, who served as head coach from 1931-50, taking a break from 1942-45 for military service. Wade coached in the 1942 Rose Bowl that was hosted at Duke Stadium after the Pearl Harbor attack rendered the West Coast too risky for large sporting events. Wade also coached the 1938 “Iron Dukes,” who held every opponent scoreless until reaching the Rose Bowl.
“I’m very aware of the history,” Cutcliffe said. “I went this week and really researched, and I looked at Wallace Wade at a lot of stages. Duke Stadium had a lot of stages and then Wallace Wade…. Everybody that’s ever played here will be pleased with what’s going to be the end product and what Wallace Wade Stadium will look like.”
The seniors leave Wallace Wade Stadium with a two-season record of 19-7, compared to 9-16 for their first two years on the field. Although some may look ahead to the opportunity to play professionally, all 28 athletes will remember their contribution to closing this chapter of Wallace Wade with a win.
“History [was] made tonight,” Cutcliffe said. “It couldn’t happen to a better bunch of young men. They earned it, and I’m certainly looking forward to wherever we end up.”
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