How Duke let a possible program-defining upset slip away at Florida State
On a night, because of the opponent and the venue, when Duke needed its best performance, the No. 16 Blue Devils fell far short.
Nearly everything they had shown under coach Mike Elko over the previous 19 games, the kind of stuff that gave the Blue Devils hope they could beat a team ranked in the top five on the road, failed to materialize, particularly in the fourth quarter.
So No. 4 Florida State (7-0, 5-0 ACC), by scoring the game’s final 21 points, left Doak Campbell Stadium with a 38-20 win Saturday night.
“I think we didn’t play complimentary football,” Elko said. “Probably for the first time since I’ve been here, we didn’t play complimentary football on both sides of the ball. That’s what that looks like in the fourth quarter. It looks like a worn out team.”
It boiled down to a series of events, beginning late in the third quarter, that unraveled what had started to look like a program-defining win for the Blue Devils (5-2, 2-1 ACC).
Losing Leonard
Ahead 20-17, Duke drove into Florida State territory late in the third quarter. That’s when quarterback Riley Leonard, playing on a sore right ankle that left him unable to play his best, re-injured that ankle while being sacked.
Florida State was penalized 15 yards because defensive lineman Braden Fiske grabbed Leonard’s facemask and ripped his helmet off while tackling him.
That gave Duke the ball at the Florida State 11, but the cost was not having Leonard for the rest of the game.
In stepped redshirt freshman Henry Belin IV, who had quarterbacked Duke to a 24-3 win over N.C. State one week earlier.
Now he had Duke on the precipice of a double-digit lead over an opponent the Blue Devils had never beaten.
Three consecutive Jordan Waters runs put Duke at the Florida State 4, facing fourth down and 3.
Elko had already decided Duke would not settle for a field goal on this drive.
“We didn’t feel like going up six was gonna really help us,” Elko said. “Their offense is too explosive.”
So Duke had Belin attempt a pass. The only receiver to break open was Jalon Calhoun in the left corner of the end zone, but because of pressure from Florida State’s Jared Verse and Patrick Payton, Belin’s pass led Calhoun too much and the ball fell to the turf incomplete.
“Maybe we could have called a better play, but the fourth down call was the right call,” Elko said. “I don’t think a field goal would have helped us much there. On the play we just got covered. I mean, nobody got open. There were a lot of plays like that today.”
Florida State’s game-turning drive
The flip side was Florida State took over on its own 4. In a similar situation in the first half, Duke forced Jordan Travis to throw from his own end zone and the result was an interception that Chandler Rivers returned for a Blue Devils touchdown.
This time, the talented Travis and that explosive offense Elko mentioned came up big. In a drive that bracketed the end of the third quarter and the start of the fourth, Travis made one big throw after another as Florida State took the lead for good.
On a third-and-7 play, he found Hykeen Williams for 11 yards to the Florida State 39. One play later he connected with Johnny Wilson for 11 more yards to reach Duke territory.
As play moved to the fourth quarter, Travis scrambled 20 yards to the Duke 10. After Duke’s Al Blades, Jr., was called for pass interference in the end zone, Travis’ 2-yard touchdown run put the Seminoles ahead 24-20 and Duke had no answers.
“I think the energy got sapped by us not converting the fourth down and them driving 97 yards to take the lead,” Elko said.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, with Belin at quarterback, Duke went three-and-out on its possession and a tired defense was back on the field. Travis led a 74-yard touchdown drive that included three plays that gained 20 yards or more — including a 21-yard touchdown pass to Lawrence Toafili for a 31-20 Seminoles lead.
Losing a 10-point lead
Throughout the previous season and a half of football, while going 13-5 under Elko, Duke always had answers even when ultimately losing a game. This marked the first time the Blue Devils lost by more than eight points under their second-year coach.
Having scored the game’s first 10 points at Florida State, this also marked the first time Duke lost under Elko after scoring first.
Jaquez Moore, Duke’s junior running back who gained a career-best 110 rushing yards, called the result “heartbreaking.” He grew up a Florida State fan and desperately wanted a win in Tallahassee.
“Being from Florida and growing up a Seminole, it’s hard to grasp this loss,” Moore said. “We’ve got to take on the chin and move on to next week. You know, we can do nothing but learn from this performance.”
Duke will look at its failures in the passing game, which included holding and false start penalties by its offensive line, as a reason it couldn’t beat Florida State. With the hobbled Leonard and the overwhelmed Belin, Duke only amassed 76 passing yards while completing just 8 of 22 passes.
I just think towards the end of that game we just didn’t execute,” Duke left tackle Graham Barton said. “A lot of our mistakes were self inflicted.”
Duke’s defense, which had only allowed 9.8 points per game previously, held Florida State four points below its season scoring average of 42.4 points — and that was with the Seminoles scoring on a kickoff return that turned the momentum after Duke led 17-7 in the second quarter.
Still, even that solid group gave up that 96-yard scoring drive that turned the game for good.
“We left a lot out there tonight and have to go back and fix it on Monday,” Duke defensive tackle DeWayne Carter said.
The season is not lost. Duke has a game at Louisville on Saturday and, after a home game with Wake Forest on Nov. 2, makes the short trip to play at North Carolina on Nov. 11.
A path to the ACC championship game, and perhaps a rematch with Florida State, is out there for Duke. The Blue Devils just have to find a better version of themselves to make it happen.