No fancy explanations necessary as UNC whips Duke

When asked why the Tar Heels were able to so successfully air raid the Duke defense in their 66-31 win Saturday, cornerback Breon Borders kept it simple.

“They’re fast,” he said.

There aren’t any fancy words needed to describe what UNC did to the Blue Devils on Saturday. That was plenty apparent to anyone that watched the game – or just looked at the final score.

“We just got whipped, badly,” coach David Cutcliffe said. “In every aspect.”

If UNC quarterback Marquise Williams was playing a video game, he would have had a hard time putting up better numbers than he did in real life.

Williams and the Tar Heels offense racked up yards and put up points like they were playing against air. And the follies for the Blue Devils’ defense began from the first snap, a flea-flicker from Williams to Ryan Switzer that went 89 yards for a touchdown in 12 seconds.

Deep safety Deondre Singleton bit on the fake, letting Switzer breeze right by him. So when Switzer made his catch, there were no Blue Devils’ defenders in sight. Cutcliffe said after the game that it was a failure in coverage communication.

There were other equally as loud errors. The Tar Heels had six passes that went at least 20 yards in the first half, and nine total. Some were quick slants that gained a windfall of yards after the catch, like a screen pass to T.J. Logan that went for 49 yards and set up Tar Heel touchdown No. 2.

And then there were the deep strikes through the air, like the 74-yard bomb to Mack Hollins that beat true freshman Jeremy McDuffie for another score with 1:30 left in the first half.

The Tar Heels weren’t done, though, adding a 49-yard strike with one second left in the half, turning a Thomas Sirk interception into their fifth touchdown of the first half and a 38-10 lead.

“It shocked us when they scored at the end of the half, twice,” Borders said. “It’s just little mental mistakes we had. We’ll get them fixed. They’re fixable problems.”

Williams had 404 passing yards in the first half. The last time a “Power 5” defense gave up that many yards in that short of span was when Purdue’s Kyle Orton was leading the Boilermakers train over Indiana in 2004.

There have been many dark days in Duke football history – this is the program that successfully argued that it was the worst FBS team in a court of law in 2008 to get out of a series with Louisville –but Saturday’s game marked the most points and yards UNC had recorded in this rivalry, which dates back to 1888.

Borders said the Blue Devils were prepared. Cutcliffe mentioned in his Tuesday press conference that explosive plays were his biggest worry against UNC. That proved to be spot-on, as the Tar Heels did exactly what they wanted all afternoon.

“We have to look at tackling better, covering better, throwing it better, catching it better,” Cutcliffe said. “We have to look at alignments. We have to look at every detail of the football end of things.”

That pretty much covers it.

Cutcliffe told his team after the game to put aside any thoughts or talk of useless theories.

“People are going to ask you were y’all this, were y’all that, were you still thinking about—all of that is a useless conversation at this point,” he said. Instead, he directed them to focus on what they can control because there is no magic formula to improve.

And Duke certainly needs to do that.

“We have a very proud program,” Cutcliffe said, “And I expect our team to respond in a big way.”

This story was originally published November 7, 2015 at 5:46 PM with the headline "No fancy explanations necessary as UNC whips Duke."