Duke football turned in a dud in loss to Louisville. Can the Blue Devils regain their edge?
Duke turned in a throwback performance it never wanted to see Saturday.
No. 18 Louisville ran the ball with authority, part of a game where the Cardinals pushed No. 20 Duke around in all areas of the game.
The final score, 23-0, looked dominant but only partially told how one-sided this game was.
Though Louisville didn’t score a touchdown after the first quarter, Duke coach Mike Elko wasn’t fooled.
“They physically got after us today,” Elko said. “That’s me. That’s my job. My job is to get this team ready to go physically, and we didn’t answer the bell that way.”
The result was something atypical for Duke since Elko became its head coach in December 2021. The Blue Devils have consistently played tough competitive football, going 9-4 last season and starting this season with wins in five of their first six games.
But losses the last two weeks have Duke (5-3, 2-2 ACC) reeling in a way it hoped to never experience again. Remember, it was just two seasons ago Duke went winless in the ACC, enduring 13 consecutive league losses over 2020 and 2021.
Elko won ACC Coach of the Year last season by changing those results immediately.
And yet, here the Blue Devils were on Saturday at Louisville, playing the part of punching bag from beginning to end.
Louisville scored touchdowns on its first two possessions, with running back Jawhar Jordan rushing for both scores. The junior running back had 100 yards by halftime on the way to a career-best 163 yards.
Duke’s offense produced season-low totals in rushing yards (51) and total yards (203) while allowing quarterback Riley Leonard to be sacked four times. That nearly matched the five sacks Duke had allowed all season prior to Saturday.
“The way we started was really flat on both sides of the ball,” Elko said. “We got behind 14 to nothing on the road against a really good football team. That hasn’t been our recipe (for success) since I got here. It caused us to chase the game a little bit. And in chasing the game, we never found ways to get our footing on offense.”
Leonard, still hobbled by the sprained right ankle he initially suffered on Sept. 30, looked more capable in the running game than he did a week earlier when Duke lost, 38-20, at Florida State. But the way his offensive line played in front of him rendered his health status moot.
“It just wasn’t pretty,” Elko said. “It wasn’t pretty at all.”
Every offensive lineman received at least one penalty, with left tackle Brian Parker (holding, false start), center Scott Elliott (holding, false start) each netting two. Guards Maurice McIntyre and Justin Pickett were each whistled for unnecessary roughness calls after the whistle.
“Penalties were a huge factor,” Elko said. “We committed way too many to have success on the road, and that’s on me as the head football coach. I’ve got to figure out how to get that cleaned up and fixed.”
Duke started the game without preseason all-ACC tackle Graham Barton, who wasn’t in uniform due to a lower-body injury. It lost its next best offensive lineman, Jacob Monk, in the first quarter to injury.
That’s why Elliott and Parker were playing so much against Louisville’s tough defensive front.
Elko couldn’t completely dismiss the injuries as a factor but still felt the line should be able to overcome and perform better.
“We’ve talked a lot since I’ve been here,” Elko said, “that our job is to have the next guy ready to go. Today, I didn’t do that. I didn’t do that well enough. And so when it got down to it, we just didn’t make enough plays blocking. There was pressure all night.”
Duke’s defense calmed down after those first two Louisville touchdown drives, limiting the Cardinals to three field goals over the last three quarters. Still, that wasn’t nearly good enough.
“Obviously, they’re very physical upfront,” Duke defensive tackle Ja’Mion Franklin said. “I don’t think that really was the issue. I think that they were hitting a lot of runs and Jordan was hitting holes a lot faster than we should allow them.”
The Blue Devils don’t have long to get things right since Wake Forest comes to Wallace Wade Stadium for a Thursday night game.
The loss at Florida State was frustrating for Duke because it did enough things right to carry a three-point lead into the fourth quarter. The Seminoles scored the next three touchdowns to win going away.
But against Louisville, Duke failed to put up much of a battle as the Cardinals secured a comfortable win.
Wake Forest (4-4, 1-4) hasn’t proven to be as good a team as Duke faced over the last two games. Still, the Blue Devils know they need to correct plenty on their sideline before success will return on the field.
“We want to win every game that’s left on our schedule,” Franklin said. “So we’re going to attack this short week against an in-state rival. There’s nothing really more that needs to be said about that. We’ll be ready to play this game and we’re gonna be ready to finish out the season strong.”
This story was originally published October 28, 2023 at 8:15 PM.