Well, that wasn’t much fun for Duke fans.
After a 9-3 opening season for new head coach Manny Diaz that saw the Blue Devils consistently pull off thrilling victories, Duke earned the opportunity to take on a top-tier opponent in Ole Miss at the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl. So, the 52-20 drubbing courtesy of the Rebel’s pinpoint offense and suffocating defense, can only be described as anticlimactic.
As painful as the loss was for the Blue Devils — especially graduating players like wideout Jordan Moore, who was forced to put into words his lasting legacy on the program after the game — it was a necessary step in where Diaz hopes to take the program. Duke learned some key lessons, and one rose above all else: Football starts and ends with the quarterback.
Ole Miss signal caller Jaxson Dart, who will hope to hear his name in the upcoming NFL Draft, picked apart a Blue Devil secondary that ranked atop the ACC all season. Dart had no trouble finding the holes against the zone and used his legs to the tune of 43 rushing yards (that number is deflated by sacks). Most of the senior's big throws were not due to botched coverages from the Duke defense; he simply outplayed them.
“The way that [Dart] played today and some of the throws that he made were elite. Sometimes you gotta take your cap off to somebody,” Diaz said.
On the other side of the ball, the Blue Devils were without their top two quarterbacks in Maalik Murphy and Grayson Loftis. Redshirt sophomore Henry Belin IV got the start, and while he performed admirably given the situation, he was nowhere near as comfortable as Dart. Against an aggressive Rebel defensive front and facing an ever-growing deficit, Belin looked like a quarterback making his first start of the season — which, of course, he was.
Duke’s very first offensive possession started deep in Ole Miss territory thanks to a Terry Moore interception, but it gave an omen of what was to come the rest of the evening. On third- and fourth-and-1, Belin threw a pair of incompletions to give the ball back to the Rebels. Dart responded in turn with a surgical drive bookmarked by a 32-yard touchdown pass. For the rest of the game, it seemed as though every minor mistake Belin made quickly became six points at the hands of Dart.
The point here is not that Belin played poorly. He didn’t. Rather, the Gator Bowl showed the difference an elite quarterback can have in a game.
“I’ve played football a long time with some really good quarterbacks. [I] Just hope everybody appreciates what they saw, statistically in the play, but what they saw from a competitor and leader,” Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin said.
Throughout the Blue Devils’ season, Murphy showed flashes of a quarterback with the potential to be elite. It was clear that he could make any throw on the field at any moment — think of circus throws to Moore or the deep haymakers to graduate wideout Eli Pancol. But, Murphy also had his flaws; he struggled outside of the pocket and under pressure, often resulting in ill-advised throws into harm’s way.
Ole Miss’ No. 2 was operating on a different level. Similarly, Murphy was outplayed by the quarterbacks in each of Duke’s three losses in the regular season. Georgia Tech’s Haynes King, SMU’s Kevin Jennings and Miami’s Cam Ward outdueled the redshirt sophomore, and their teams followed their lead.
Yes, the Blue Devils’ defense was the engine behind the team’s success. Nor is this argument an attempt to minimize the efforts of offensive players like Star Thomas, Moore and Pancol, who each made remarkable individual efforts at key moments. But, the point remains that football tends to be decided by the quarterback.
This discussion may feel less relevant following the news of Murphy’s departure to the transfer portal. The Blue Devils will be with a new quarterback in Tulane transfer Darian Mensah next season, and it is impossible to speculate how the rising sophomore will fare on Diaz’s roster. If the new head coach hopes to build on what he built in year one in Durham, though, it will start there.
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Dom Fenoglio is a Trinity junior and a sports managing editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.