On a chilly night at Wallace Wade Stadium, Duke and Wake Forest are locked in a tight battle between teams looking to halt their losing skids. The Blue Devil offense looked stunted early but picked up steam at the end of the half, and the game sits tied 14-14 after 30 minutes of play:
Five observations
More injury updates: The Blue Devils are really having it tough with the injury bug, as linebacker Dorian Mausi joined the list of Blue Devils out for Thursday’s game — the most notable being starting quarterback Riley Leonard, who was in street clothes and a boot on his injured left foot. Backup Henry Belin IV is also unlikely to play, leaving freshmen Grayson Loftis and Donald Tomlin the only two healthy quarterbacks on the Blue Devil roster.
Moving in place: The first three Duke possessions of the game combined for a total of 10 yards. The Blue Devils were not helped by the fact that starting left tackle Graham Barton is still out with an injury and Loftis just doesn’t have much game experience. Loftis went just 2-for-8 with 25 yards over the air in the first half, and had a first-quarter drive spoiled by a strip-sack — which somehow did not result in Wake Forest points as the Demon Deacons’ kicker hooked a 27-yarder left. The Blue Devils accrued 18 yards of offense in the first quarter but finally exploded for a score on the ground in the early going of the second frame.
Quarterback pressure: Both teams were aggressive in pursuing the opposing quarterbacks — and did not do much to avoid taking some hits. The Blue Devils picked up two sacks and the Demon Deacons added one of their own, including the one which caused Loftis’ first-quarter fumble and additional high heat that forced an interception. Loftis was hurried just about every dropback while Wake Forest’s Mitch Griffis was able to escape the brunt of Duke’s pass rush. The Demon Deacons entered Thursday allowing 4.6 sacks per game and the Blue Devils were keen to take advantage of the poor protection offered by their in-state foes.
Ground and pound: For the Blue Devils, whose quarterback has had trouble finding his receivers over the air, it was the ground game which kept them in it in a scrappy first half of football. Duke running backs Jaquez Moore and Jordan Waters combined for 17 carries for 126 yards, an average of 7.4 per carry. The Blue Devils still mixed in the occasional pass play — with Loftis’ first couple completions each coming on easy screen passes — to keep the Demon Deacon defense guessing, but the run game was the dominant force for the Duke offense.
Eight-minute drill: Duke closed out the half with an impressive 14-play, seven-plus-minute drive which took the ball from 8:10 down to 1:00. The Blue Devils ran the ball 12 times and threw only twice but the discrepancy didn’t matter as they tacked on another score by Jordan Waters to even things up at 14 with one minute to play.
By the numbers
Duke average time of possession: As Duke’s first several drives stalled — and even the Blue Devils’ first scoring possession went by in a flash — it was not able to control the clock as each possession ran off an average of just 2:10 and held the ball for just 13:03 of the first 30 minutes — and just 5:53 of the first 21:50.
Total yardage: Despite it looking like Wake Forest was going to control the movement of the ball downfield early, Duke was able to respond and pick up chunk yardage to amount to 150 total. The Demon Deacons have out-gained the Blue Devils by just 44 yards.
Griffis completion percentage: The Wake Forest quarterback started off his night with eight consecutive completions, an impressive opening for the fourth-year sophomore who owned a 57.3 completion percentage prior to Thursday night.
A play that mattered
There weren’t many. It was a lot of back-and-forth between punts, fumbles, interceptions and missed field goals, leaving just about any forward progress as a notable feat. But with 9:50 on the clock in the second quarter, Loftis was hurried by Wake Forests’ Kevin Pointer and a deflected pass was easily hauled in by Quincy Bryant, leading to the Demon Deacons’ second touchdown and a 14-7 deficit for the Blue Devils.
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Micah Hurewitz is a Trinity senior and was previously a sports managing editor of The Chronicle's 118th volume.