Category: 2022 Season

Interview – Jontavis Robertson

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Jontavis “Hollywood” Roberston stopped by for a talk about Duke’s mood coming out of Spring Ball, his position coaches, the deep wideout room, what to expect in 2023, the strength and conditioning program and Coach Elko’s fondness for Coca-Cola products. Jontavis, like all cultured soda drinkers, also likes Coke. Let me just say it’s very reassuring to know that he and Coach Elko don’t like the trash of all soda products, Pepsi.

Jontavis tells us about how much it meant for the Blue Devils to win a bowl game as well as the different running styles of each quarterback. While Riley is a giraffe, we haven’t landed on what animals Belin and Loftis run like. If you have any ideas, leave them in the comments.

Thanks, Jontavis, for stopping by. This was a fun talk.

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!

Interview – Brett from Pick Six Previews

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Brett from over at Pick Six Previews stopped by to talk about his yearly Power 5 previews, how great season preview magazines used to be, mini-helmets, how Duke turned it around last year and why the ACC needs to make the annual game with Wake more important. We also get into the 2023 season and the future of the ACC. This was a fun talk with a die-hard college football fan and top-notch analyst.

One thing that I found to be of particular interest was our discussion of the differences between the Blue Devils’ 2022 and 2023 schedules. This year could see the team lose more games, but still be a better team than last year. I can’t wait to see what happens and I’m hoping that Duke builds on the success of last season.

If you haven’t yet, check out these sweet Blue Devil helmets Brett put together!

Order here.

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

As always, Go Duke!

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!

2022 Game Recaps – Military Bowl Champion Duke Blue Devils

Coming into the Military Bowl, Duke had a chance to finish off a great season with a bowl championship. This was an opportunity to make a statement about what the Blue Devils had done this season and what the ACC should expect next year. Duke took a swing and didn’t miss. Instead of a whiff, the Blue Devils knocked it out of the park. Home run. Grand slam. Whatever term you want to use, it fits. Duke came out of the gate running and didn’t stop. When it was over, the Blue Devils defeated UCF by a score of 30-13. After finishing the first quarter tied at seven, Duke closed the half up 20-7 and outscored the Knights 10-6 in the final thirty.

The Blue Devils won this game the same way we saw them beat UVA; Duke was methodical, forceful and more physically dominant than their opponent. Nothing was particularly exciting or unique from a scheme perspective (to the extent you can tell that from TV). It was old style football full of running, hitting and being more physical than the opponent. The teams put up close to the same number of yards (350-326), but the Blue Devils won the turnover battle (2-0) and made the most of their opportunities. It was a nice win over a team that will be a P5 next season.

Since I had to skip out on most of the second half to spend time with the family on our vacation (and, for the record, Duke scored again when I got back to the TV, so can someone tell Coach Johns I’m sorry for the second half funk? Great, thanks!), I’m going to spend some time discussing what this win means for the program by going back to last season’s Five Things:

One – With nine wins this season, Coach Elko set the record for most first season wins by a head coach in Blue Devil history. Fred Goldsmith had eight, but couldn’t win the Hall of Fame Bowl. Coach Elko is in the record books. Congrats, Coach!

Two – By getting to, and winning, a bowl game, the overwhelming majority of players on this team can forget all about the hellscape that was 2019-2021. Two-and-a-half lousy seasons are, without question, in the rearview mirror. Congrats, guys! We’re all ecstatic that you got to experience a season like this one. You deserved it.

Three – I’d like to see what Josh Cox’s Facebook relationship status is vis-a-vis Todd Pelino. Todd went 3/3 for the game with a long of 48. It looks like Duke has the kicking position locked down for the foreseeable future.

Four – The Blue Devils will have a target on them all next season. After going 8-4 (5-3) and losing four close games, Duke won’t be the ACC’s best kept secret in 2023. With a year of film for opposing staffs to digest, and a lot of good opponents on the schedule (Clemson, Notre Dame and Florida State, among others), the Blue Devils won’t be able to sneak up on anyone. In 2023, a victory over Duke won’t be a given and it won’t be taken for granted. The opponents will all want to beat the Blue Devils because doing so will amount to a statement win. For Duke, a bowl game will be expected, not a surprise. This is different from a lot of seasons we’ve seen in Durham. And with expectations this high, we’ll get to see exactly what this staff and this team are capable of.

Five – As I pointed out on Twitter, yesterday’s Military Bowl victory marked the fourth straight bowl win for the Blue Devils. Dating back to the Pinstripe Bowl in 2015, Duke has won every bowl it has played in. We are a long, long way away from where Blue Devils have been most of my life. From 1981 to 2012, Duke had only been to two bowl games (and I know there weren’t as many bowl games when I was young as there are today, but you get my point) and hadn’t won either of them. Since snapping a bowl victory drought that dated back to 1960 with a Pinstripe Bowl championship in 2015, the Blue Devils haven’t looked back. Let’s hope this continues next year and for many, many seasons thereafter.

And that’s it for the game recap. I’ll plan on doing a season recap in January and will try to follow it up by discussing some other great seasons in program history. I’ll also keep working on scheduling interviews (which I fell behind on).

So, with that, 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!

2022 Game Previews – Military Bowl

Folks, since I’m on vacation for the Military Bowl, I’m going to be brief with the game preview. I already wrote about UCF when the bowl game got announced, so I don’t have too much more to add past that. However, in getting ready for the game, I noticed that Knights aren’t a team that Duke can afford to overlook. UCF ranks 10th in total offense and 70th in total defense, giving up one fewer yard per game than the Blue Devils. The Knights also come in with nine wins and is just one loss in the AAC Championship away from playing in the Cotton Bowl. A team that beat Georgia Tech, Cincinnati and Tulane knows how to win. Further, two close losses to Louisville and Navy kept this from being an eleven win season. (And we all know how close losses feel.)

But Duke isn’t too shabby, either. This is the most physical, determined team we’ve seen in Durham in a long time. Many of the guys on the roster want to get the bad taste of the last several seasons out of their collective mouth. And a bowl win against a team headed to the Big 12 would be a great way to do that. Given that context, I expect the Blue Devils to come out motivated, angry and determined to prove something. That should give Duke an edge and carry the Blue Devils to their ninth win of the year.

As with any game, and I don’t consider this to be much in the way of brilliant analysis, a lot of it will come down to which coaching staff will do the best of controlling the flow of the game. It’s in that area that I think Duke is going to do a little better than the Knights. In looking back at the scores of both teams’ games this season, you’ll notice that the Blue Devils didn’t get blown out. The same can’t be said for UCF. The Knights lost two games by 17 or more points this season – losing by 21 to ECU and by 17 in the rematch against the Green Wave. Look, Gus Malzahn is a good coach, and Auburn sure hasn’t done much without him, but Coach Elko and his staff seem to have their collective finger on the pulse of their team. While two bad losses may not say too much in the way of a negative for a team, the fact that our guys have managed to avoid a blowout says a lot about what Coach Elko and his staff are capable of.

Sidenote – UCF’s offensive coordinator, Chip Lindsey, is going to UNC to take over for Phil Longo. I don’t think that’s much of a loss because Malzahn calls the plays and has his hands on the offense. I’m not minimizing anything Lindsey did in Orlando. I’m only making the point that Malzahn is well-suited to handle the departure.

After looking at what Duke and the Knights have done this season, and considering the coaching staffs, I’m taking the Blue Devils to win a fun game. While both offenses can put up points, it wouldn’t shock me to see Duke come out and dominate the game defensively. So, with all that said, I think the Blue Devils will win by a score of 38-24. The main reason I’m taking Duke to win is because the Blue Devils have shown a real ability to play complimentary football. The three units – offense, defense and kicking – fit together well. Duke has also shown a lot of depth at wide receiver and running back as well as on the offensive line. It’s been a while since we could say this, but the Blue Devils have depth. Expect that depth to show up and make a difference come Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. (You will be able to watch the game on ESPN. And since I’m in Mexico, I may give the Spanish broadcast a shot.)

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

As always, Go Duke!

Interview – Jackson Hubbard

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We have watched Jackson Hubbard as the holder on placekicks for what seems like forever and a day. Jackson joined Duke in 2017 and, after a redshirt and a COVID year, he’s about to wrap up his sixth season as a Blue Devil with an appearance in the Military Bowl against UCF.

In this interview, we learn what brought Jackson to Duke, how he became the holder, how he went from being a walk-on to earning a scholarship and why it’s always LACES OUT!!! (Side note, I’m not sure he’s seen Ace Ventura. So, once again, I was made to feel rather old during an interview with a current player.) We also learn about the new coaching staff and how the team turned things around this season.

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

As always, Go Duke!

Interview – Lauren Brownlow

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We all know Lauren Brownlow, purveyor of all things ACC, from her Twitter account and The ACC Panic Room. What started off as a conversation about ACC football got sidetracked into more entertaining subjects like how awful Pete Carroll is and the punchable face that he has, did Russell Wilson get a hex put on him (and by whom?) and the Catsup toss that was the 2010 Music City Bowl. We also discussed Long-COVID and the difficulties associated with being a woman in sports journalism.

Now, we did actually discuss a lot of issues with ACC football including the conference serving as Notre Dame’s sidepiece (and, because I wasn’t clear initially, my complaints about the Irish go back to 2013 when they “joined” the conference), a mixed bag of good and not so good bowl games and what Coach Elko and Duke accomplished this year. We also discuss the sort of implosion we’re watching real-time over at that school in Chapel Hill. There’s also a good discussion about what it will take to keep the Blue Devils competitive over the coming seasons.

And, of course, we relive this glorious moment of ACC football:

In the open mic session, Lauren made good use of her time and talked about the need to donate to domestic violence shelters. Please consider doing this during a time that many families could use some help. It’s a great cause.

Let us know what you think in the comments, on Reddit, on Mastodon or on Twitter.

As always, Go Duke!

2022 Bowl Game – Military Bowl

It’s official! Duke will play UCF in the Military Bowl at the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium on December 28 at 2pm. The Blue Devils are back in a bowl game for the first time since 2018. Coach Elko is the first Duke head coach to take the Blue Devils to a bowl since Fred Goldsmith did it way back in 1994. With a win, he would be the first head coach to win nine games in his first season since … I think anyone! I am going to check that again before the bowl, but I think he would be the first head coach to start with nine wins in a season if Duke beats UCF. Let’s all hope that happens because that would be awesome.

As a quick primer on UCF, they went 9-4 in the American Athletic Conference, finished second to Tulane in the regular season and lost to the Green Wave in the conference title game. UCF’s head coach is Gus Malzahn who had a good stretch at Auburn and is 18-8 (11-5) in two seasons at his current gig. UCF had a decent year with wins over Georgia Tech, Cincinnati and Tulane (in the regular season. They lost the rematch in the AAC Championship). They also lost to Louisville and ECU.

While some folks wanted a P5 opponent, which I get, don’t overlook UCF. This team is headed to the Big 12 next season, so you know they can compete. Regardless of the fact that this isn’t a P5 opponent, this is a good matchup and should be a fun game. Further, I don’t see the Blue Devils sleepwalking into this one. Our guys will be ready to win a bowl game.

And that’s it for the quick update. Let me know what you think about what I think in the comments, on Reddit, on Mastodon, on Post or on Twitter.

As always, Go Duke!

Interview – 2022 ACC Recap with Matthew

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Matthew from The ACC Weekly Podcast returned to the podcast to recap the 2022 ACC football season. We covered a lot of topics including Coach Elko being ACC Coach of the Year and the great season that Duke had, how FSU is on the cusp of getting back to the top of the ACC mountain, the disappointing seasons that UVA and Miami had as well as the future of the conference and what it needs to do in order to stay viable. We also both take Clemson to win the ACC Championship (and I called out the ACC for conspiring to put UNC in the title game over the Blue Devils). And we talked about Russian misinformation in online sports communities! This was a fun talk with an expert on all things ACC.

As always, Go Duke!

2022 Regular Season Recap – A Great One

If you guys know anything about me, it’s that I’m fairly pessimistic about Duke football. This site got started as a way for me to vent my frustrations about the program collapsing in 2019. After watching the way the team performed in 2020 and 2021, I had a lot of doubts about what this team could accomplish in 2022. Given that the core of the team remained more or less the same, I was hopeful, but realistic. My hope was that the Blue Devils would be competitive in each game they played and could snag a few wins. That, without more, would have been a tremendous accomplishment after the last 2.5 years. While I heard a lot of good things from a lot of players heading into the season, I took a “Prove it” mentality. And these guys did just that – they proved it.

Eight wins. Five conference wins. Let that last one sink in for a minute. While Duke hadn’t won eight games in a season since 2018, the Blue Devils hadn’t won five conference games since 2014. That’s a long, long time. That was the same year that Duke last produced a winning record in conference. So, while eight wins is fantastic, I’m way, way more excited about the five conference wins. Because the ability to win championships starts in divisions (well, not next year for the ACC, but you get my point), you have to win your ACC games to get to a championship. Getting over .500 in the ACC is a big deal.

What else was great about this season? Pretty much everything. Coach Elko pushed the right buttons, hired the right staff and saw Coach Johns and Coach Smith deliver on their respective sides of the ball. The offense and defense played real complimentary football and were in every game they played this year. And let’s pause to think about that. After a series of blowout losses over 2.5 years, this team came together and competed every week. That’s a big deal. The Blue Devils’ four losses this season were by a total of 16 points. Had the ball bounced a little differently, and had a garbage penalty against Chapel Hill College not been called, this team could’ve easily won 10 games. To think that this team went from 3-9 (0-8) to being a few plays away from 10 wins is hard to comprehend. But it happened, and we should all be grateful.

But my favorite part of the season had to be the final game against Wake Forest. Coming into that game, Duke had beaten a lot of teams that, and let’s be honest about this, weren’t particularly good. Temple finished 3-9 (1-7), Northwestern was 1-11 (1-8), A&T was 7-4 (4-1) in the FCS Big South, UVA was 3-7 (1-6), Miami was 5-7 (3-5), Boston College was 3-9 (2-6) and Virginia Tech was 3-8 (1-6). Now, you have to beat the teams that you’re supposed to beat, but if you want to get to the next level, you also have to beat the good teams. The Blue Devils were close a couple of times but fell just short against Pitt and Chapel Hill College. And while Georgia Tech wasn’t awful this year, that was a game that Duke should have won. And had they done so, the win would have looked better after the Jackets upset Carolina. So, there was a lot riding on the last game of the season. And the Blue Devils delivered. It. Was. Perfect.

This was a great season, no question about it. As the Elko Era progresses, I hope that we’ll get to look back on this as a the first of many great seasons.

What did you think about this season? Let me know what you think about what I think in the comments, on Reddit, or on Twitter.

As always, Go Duke!