After Deon Jackson and Mataeo Durant dance for 332 yards, Duke dances to celebrate win
Duke was doing some dancing Saturday.
Been a while. Beating Syracuse 38-24 in a road game at the Carrier Dome was the Blue Devils’ first victory after four losses in 2020, creating a merry scene in the Duke locker room after the ACC game.
Duke coach David Cutcliffe was there, too, in the middle of it. “How would I not?” he said after the game. “It was just letting off a lot of steam.”
Here’s a guess: while Cutcliffe did his thing as best he could, Deon Jackson and Mataeo Durant probably had the best dance moves, the fanciest footwork.
While it was a team victory in every sense, the day belonged to the two Duke running backs and the big guys up front, grunting, hitting and blocking. Or as Cutcliffe put it, “We physically dominated the line of scrimmage.”
Jackson, a senior, had 169 yards on a career-high 30 carries and passed 2,000 career yards. Durant, a junior, got the ball 23 times for 163 yards. Said Jackson, “We fed off each other.”
By game’s end, Duke had 363 yards rushing — after averaging 101 yards the first four games — and 645 yards in total offense, both the third-highest since Cutcliffe has been at Duke. The Blue Devils ran 102 plays to Syracuse’s 52 and had the ball for almost 40 minutes.
“There was a toughness to our team today that didn’t really exist before,” Cutcliffe said. “We were the aggressors right off the start.”
This was an 0-4 football team, even as Cutcliffe said the Blue Devils were “so close.” The Vegas types made Duke a slight betting favorite over a Syracuse team that slapped Duke 49-6 a year ago in Durham and had beaten Georgia Tech, which handled Louisville on Friday, by 17 points in its last game.
It wasn’t flawless by any means. Victories rarely are, regardless of the final score. Duke lost three fumbles and would have lost others had receiver Eli Pancol not fought to get the ball back after losing it — Chase Brice hit Jarett Garner for a 52-yard score on the next play — and had center Will Taylor not hopped on a Brice fumble.
Brice had one pass picked off and Syracuse defenders got their hands on other throws, near-misses. After a Brice fumble, Cutcliffe pulled him out of the game for a series, putting in Gunnar Holmberg, while Brice caught his breath and brought his heart rate down.
“I settled back down,” Brice said. “I thought I had a lot of emotions, nerves. I wasn’t really playing my type of ball and I settled down and got things going.”
Syracuse quarterback Tommy DeVito hit the Blue Devils with two scoring pass plays, a 79-yard sideline throw to wideout Taj Harris on the Orange’s first possession and then a 53-yarder to tight end Luke Benson in the second half.
But Syracuse’s uptempo offense was quiet in long stretches as Duke stuffed one fourth-and-1 play and forced eight punts. And DeVito left the game with an injury in the fourth quarter and later was on crutches.
Duke scored on its first possession, Brice with a scoring throw to wide receiver Jalon Calhoun, and led 24-14 at the half. The yards were there, the aggression. The Blue Devils did not let up as Brice was 22 of 38 for 270 yards and the backs kept on running.
“We won the fourth quarter and the second half for the first time.” Cutcliffe said. “We answered scores with our offense. We hadn’t done that.”
For Duke, the road ahead begins with a game Saturday against N.C. State, which also won on the road Saturday at Virginia. Duke will go into the game with the confidence that continued hard work can translate into a victory, that there can be more.
Duke defensive end Drew Jordan said after the game, after the dancing, Cutcliffe said, “This is the first of many.”
“We’ll have a shot,” Cutcliffe said. “That’s all you can ask for. You’ve got to have a shot week in and week out in what’s going to be the toughest schedule any Duke team has had to play, 10 Power Five games, 10 ACC games.”
This story was originally published October 10, 2020 at 12:17 PM.
