Duke surges to 45-21 ACC road win over Cal. What we learned about Blue Devils
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- Duke recovered from early setbacks to win 45-21 and go 3-0 in ACC.
- Mensah completed 22-of-30 passes for 265 yards and led multiple scoring drives.
- Duke improved tackling and turnover margin, producing a plus-11 swing in wins.
Duke’s Anderson Castle put his head down and plowed his way into the end zone Saturday, giving the Blue Devils the lead for the first time against the California Golden Bears.
Duke quarterback Darian Mensah, after the handoff, sensing the bruising running back was touchdown bound, soon began stomping his way through the end zone. His fists were clenched as he oozed intensity.
In a game that had a nightmarish start for the Blue Devils, falling behind, losing players, it all ended well for Duke. The Blue Devils recovered for a 45-21 road victory at Cal’s Memorial Stadium, going 3-0 in the ACC for the first time since 2015.
Mensah, returning to his home state to play, finished 22-of-30 passing for 265 yards yards and had scoring passes to Que’Sean Brown and Cooper Barkate.
Brown, making several contested catches, had six grabs for 104 yards and a TD. Barkate, another Californian coming back home, had five receptions for 66 yards, his tough 10-yard TD catch in the fourth quarter pushing Duke’s lead to 38-21.
The Bears (4-2, 1-1 ACC), a dangerous offensive team with freshman lefthander Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele at quarterback, took a quick 14-0 lead and later had a 21-7 first-half spread.
The Blue Devils (4-2, 3-0) had defensive leader Tre Freeman leave the game early with an injury, then linebacker Bradley Gompers ejected after a targeting call in the first half.
But Duke regrouped for a 31-21 halftime lead, ending the half with a Todd Pelino field goal. Nate Sheppard had a 12-yard scoring run, Castle scored twice and Brown pulled in a 26-yard TD throw from Mensah in the first-half surge. Sheppard, who rushed for 91 yards, had a second TD with a 46-yard burst for Duke’s final score.
“No one panicked,” Duke coach Manny Diaz said. “We started getting stop after stop after stop, and then at the same time our offense gets hot. They get rolling and you get the feeling every time we get the ball we’re going to score.
“It was a matter of what was going to be the backbreaker, and it was the turnovers. We protected the ball on offense and we took it away on defense.”
By game’s end, Duke had scored 38 unanswered points and had 443 yards in total offense, without a turnover. The defense, despite the shock of losing Freeman and Gompers, had four interceptions, six sacks and 13 tackles for losses as it limited the Bears to 41 rushing yards and 286 total.
Freshman safety Andrew Pellicciotta had a first-half pickoff for the Devils, and senior cornerback Chandler Rivers had his first pick of the season in the third quarter. Freshman linebacker Elliott Schaper, given a lot of snaps with Freeman and Gompers out, and Moussa Kane both had late interceptions.
What did we learn about Duke in the game?
Linebacker position hit hard
Coaches realize that injuries and bad fortune sometimes tend to crop up at the same position like a bad rash that only gets worse. So it has been for Duke at linebacker.
The Blue Devils already have had middle linebacker Nick Morris Jr., called by his teammates the heart and soul of the defense, lost for the season with a leg injury. A week ago at Syracuse, they played without injured sophomore Kendall Johnson, who also sat out Saturday’s game at Cal.
Then, Freeman went out, later seen on the Memorial Stadium sideline with his arm in a sling. That came before Gompers was called for targeting in the first quarter for a big hit over the middle on Cal receiver Jordan King. The call was upheld after review and Gompers was disqualified.
Sophomore Luke Mergott, who had replaced Morris as the starter at middle linebacker, shifted to weakside linebacker Saturday. He put in a lot of snaps inside with Schaper, a freshman who began the season third on the depth chart.
“We basically played defenses we didn’t practice all week with personnel groups we didn’t practice all week,” Diaz said.
Schaper chased Sagapolutele across the field on one first-half scramble and knocked the QB out of bounds, showing good speed and pursuit. Later in the opening half, he first joined Wesley Williams on a sack, then crashed in with Vincent Anthony Jr. on another.
Not done, he had a solo sack off the blitz and finished the game with a team-high 12 tackles. The Blue Devils had six sacks in all.
“We’re just a relentless group ,” Williams said.
Overcoming Cal’s fast start
The Bears have been at their best in the first quarter this year and had a dream start Saturday they couldn’t have scripted better.
Cal took the opening kickoff and breezed 75 yards for a touchdown as Sagapolutele completed all eight of his passes, the last was a 6-yarder to Jordan King.
Duke? Freeman was hurt after a tackle on the second play of the game. Freeman was injured early in the 38-3 win at Syracuse but soon returned to the game. But he was in the medical tent for treatment much longer Saturday for an apparent arm or shoulder injury and did not come back into the game.
When the Blue Devils got the ball for their first possession, they had two holding penalties and then had Mensah sacked. Soon, Cal had the 14-0 lead as running back Kendrick Raphael, the transfer from N.C. State, scored the first of his two touchdowns.
“It’s difficult,” Diaz said. “Their quarterback was on fire and we brought two (weakside linebackers) on the trip and they’re both out of the game. But we recognized this week wasn’t going to be like last week and we were going to face adversity and you have to be prepared to overcome it.”
But the Blue Devils began to shift the momentum in the second quarter with their balance on offense that allowed the defense time to regroup. Pellicciotta picked off a pass, the freshman giving the Devils added juice.
“The key for us defensively was that we could limit them running the football,” Diaz said. “The quarterback had to do it all by himself and we felt like our pressure would eventually force him to make mistakes. That really was the first turning point of the game, a true freshman Pellicciotta with the interception.”
Late-night Devils
Duke did everything it could to get ready for late-night football on the West Coast, the Blue Devils’ first game in California since 2012.
As Diaz said, the Devils are an “early-morning practice team” and the players up by 6 a.m. In Durham. Diaz allowed the players to “sleep in” a little. The Devils scheduled a night practice for Wednesday – “Devils After Dark” – allowing the students in to see the 9:30-11:15 p.m. workout, The team then flew out Thursday, a day earlier than normal for a road game.
By game time Saturday, the goal was to have everyone’s body clocks on Pacific Time, their focus sharp for the ACC game. In short, no late-night fatigue.
“We’re not going to make a big deal of it,” Diaz said this week. “We’ll be out there. We’ll be acclimated. Ball is just ball at kickoff.”
Brown said joked after the game that he once realized he was yawning, saying, “I had to hit myself in the helmet. But after that ‘dub’ we’re feeling real good and we’re wide awake.”
Football road essentials
Diaz likes to say for every road game, it’s essential to pack what he calls the “Three T’s” – teams, turnovers and toughness.
Duke wants to have the edge with its offensive and defensive teams, but also finish with a clear advantage on special teams, he said. Turnovers always are critical, especially when they lead to points. Toughness speaks for itself.
The Blue Devils, in a 1-2 start, were minus-6 in turnovers and had forced just one. But in the two ACC wins over N.C. State and then Syracuse last week, Duke was plus-7 in turnovers. Now, in three wins, they’re plus-11.
But the Blue Devils had other areas they wanted to improve. After 23 missed tackles in the N.C. State game, many in the first half, the Devils went through live tackling drills in practice against the offense, Diaz said. The result: 10 missed tackles against Syracuse.
Duke defensive coordinator Jonathan Patke called it “one of our better performances, tackling wise” and added, “A lot of guys upheld the standard of how we tackle.”
The Blue Devils were sound again Saturday, with Schaper making hustling one-on-one tackles.
This story was originally published October 5, 2025 at 4:01 AM.
