2022 Season Recap – Heck Yeah Duke Football!

Coming into this season, the expectations for Duke were pretty low. A lot of folks, myself included, didn’t see much reason for optimism after what we’d seen from 2020-2021. While we were excited about Coach Elko and the rest of the staff, we didn’t think 2022 would be a year for the Blue Devil record book.

Some of us were wrong.

This team went from 3-9 (0-8) to 9-4 (5-3) and looked really, really good doing it (and can’t stress the 5 conference wins enough). How did things change so much in one season? Well, I think there were five key reasons for it which I will detail below. These are in no particular order of importance.

No. 1 – No bad losses. After a plethora of bad losses that really started back in 2018 when Wake Forest absolutely obliterated Duke at Wallace Wade, this Blue Devil team didn’t suffer one blowout loss the entire season. Duke’s largest margin of defeat was an eight point loss to Kansas in week four. After that, each Blue Devil loss was decided by a field goal or less (and a terrible chop block call against the Cheats). That’s a massive, massive turnaround over the course of a single season. Keeping games close gives you a chance to win, and with an older team in Durham, Coach Elko and his staff were able to put Duke in a position to do just that. So, how exactly did Coach Elko keep his team from getting blown out?

There are a couple of reasons for this. One of the most important is winning the turnover battle. Towards the end of the Cutcliffe era, the opposing team could expect the Blue Devils to turn the ball over. A lot. Coach Elko and his staff turned that around quickly. Instead of giving the ball to the other team, Duke took the ball from the other team.

That helps you get wins, especially if you find a way to play …

No. 2 – Complimentary football. This is a bit of a joke, but those who follow this team know that the Cutcliffe era offense went tempo and kept doing it even when the defense was gassed and needed some time to rest. The end result was a lot of blowout losses. A lot. We didn’t see the tempo much in 2022 and I couldn’t be happier. Coach Johns implemented a run-heavy offense that burned clock before snapping the bowl. This wasn’t some sort of triple-option scheme, but it was an effective run game that utilized RPOs, deep passes and intermediate routes to keep the defense honest. Basically, Coach Johns found ways to use the entire field. That made it harder on opposing defenses and gave time for Coaches Smith and Simpson to make defensive adjustments and keep their unit rested and refreshed.

No. 3 – Transfer portal. If you want to succeed in modern college football, you have to take advantage of the transfer portal. The Blue Devils were actually pretty good at this during the Cutcliffe era (see Cash, Jeremy, and Franklin, Ja’Mion, among others) and Coach Elko kept that up. Imagine this team without Darius Joiner, Cam Dillon, Chance Lytle, Andre Harris, Anthony Nelson, Evan Deckers, etc. Absent excellent use of the portal, we are almost certainly not looking at a nine win season.

No. 4 – Culture change. Do we really need to explain this? I think it is self-evident that Cutcliffe and the staff lost the team in 2021. Duke doesn’t have that problem right now. Coach Elko brought new life to Durham and made this team want to play football. Everyone that I’ve talked to who is associated with, or otherwise close to, the football team has said that Coach Elko completely changed the mood of this team. You don’t win nine games unless you believe in the coaching staff. And this team certainly did just that.

No. 5 – Conditioning. One of the oddest parts about the end of Cutcliffe’s era is that he let the team get under-conditioned, especially compared to the rest of the conference. It’s odd because Cucliffe made conditioning the first priority in turning the program around when he got to Durham. Colby Campbell fully discussed the problems with the Blue Devil strength and conditioning program during his interview. Current players have all mentioned how important Coach Feeley has been to getting the team in shape for gameday and for the duration of the season. The improved conditioning explains why the losses were all close and the team didn’t have a patented late season collapse like we saw so many times during the Cutcliffe era. If this level of conditioning keeps up, we should expect to see a lot of good seasons in the future.

Now, where does this season rank all-time? That’s a good question. It isn’t the 2013 ACC Coastal or 1989 ACC Championship, but it isn’t that far off. 2023 certainly has to be in the top ten of the modern era. In order to put this season in proper context, I’ll work on summarizing other great seasons in Duke football history during the offseason. And, again, this will be one of the greatest in program history.

Which season is getting recapped next? Stay tuned and find out.

Let me know what you think about what I think in the comments, on Mastodon, on Reddit, on Post, or on Twitter.

As always, Go Duke!