Cutcliffe laments repeated mistakes in loss to Cavaliers

A day after Duke suffered its fourth straight defeat—a 42-34 loss to Virginia—head coach David Cutcliffe acknowledged that his squad is confronting the same problems week to week and must correct its mistakes.

The Blue Devils once again struggled out of the gates against the Cavaliers, going down 21-0 in the first quarter. A late fourth-quarter comeback came up short when Duke turned the ball over on downs in the red zone with eight seconds remaining.

“It didn’t take film to see our breakdowns. Giving them two short fields, putting ourselves down 21-0 nothing in a hurry…we’re just doing too many things that winning teams don’t do,” Cutcliffe told reporters on a Sunday conference call. “Combinations of those things have cost us and given us headaches in trying to win the last few ballgames we’ve played. We just have some real things that have to be corrected. If you correct a few things even, the outcome of a game can different.”

The defense again failed to prevent explosive plays. The Cavaliers capitalized on Duke’s lack of a pass rush, poor tackling and coverage miscues with six plays of 20 yards or more. Virginia quarterback Matt Johns threw for a career-high 344 yards and two touchdowns, and Taquan "Smoke" Mizzell led a rushing attack that contributed 143 yards.

“We haven’t been consistent. We’re going to certainly have to avoid giving up explosive plays and that’s continued [to be] something that’s haunted us,” Cutcliffe said. “We have to play better coverage, rush the passer better and also tackle better. Everybody has to be where they are consistently. We’ve just gotten ourselves out of sync. Ten to twelve bad plays add up to a lot of points.”

Through the first three quarters, the offense was not any better. As Thomas Sirk and Parker Boehme rotated at quarterback, the Blue Devils coughed up three turnovers and struggled to sustain drives after crossing midfield.

In the fourth quarter, Boehme led the Blue Devils on back-to-back 69- and 68-yard touchdown drives and developed a connection with freshman wide receiver T.J. Rahming, who had a career-high 12 receptions for 190 yards and a score.

“We have to take care of the football on offense. We can’t continue to turn the ball over,” Cutcliffe said. “I think [Sirk and Boehme] are both good players and you’re going to see both of them [moving forward]."