LOUISVILLE, Ky.—With one major road upset already under their belts this season, the Blue Devils were hungry to pull off another shocker as they traveled to take on the nation’s No. 7 team.
For 57 minutes, they kept the score within striking distance. But a Breon Borders roughing the kicker penalty ended Duke's chances.
Borders hit Louisville kicker Evan O'Hara after a 46-yard field goal attempt with two minutes left to set up the Cardinals' game-sealing touchdown as Louisville escaped with a 24-14 win at Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium. The Blue Devils’ conservative offense could not keep pace with the Cardinals’ top-ranked attack—which outgained Duke 469-239—but a rugged style of play and a 14:24 edge in time of possession kept Duke in it until the very end.
The Blue Devils would have had a chance for a game-winning or game-tying drive before Borders' penalty.
“It was obviously disappointing to see that we weren’t going to get the ball. I thought Breon took a good angle, but you can’t really say that,” Duke quarterback Daniel Jones said. “We were pumped. It was an opportunity to take the ball and win the game. It didn’t work out that way. We were ready and ready to execute, but there’s not much to say about that.”
A grueling, 15-play, 75-yard drive brought the Blue Devils (3-4, 0-3 in the ACC) back in the fourth quarter, capped by a 20-yard touchdown pass to Johnathan Lloyd down the left sideline. Jones and company converted on three third downs and a fourth down during the sequence—which ate up nearly nine minutes of clock—and cut the score to 17-14, putting the pressure on Louisville and Heisman Trophy frontrunner Lamar Jackson to ice the game.
Jackson—who finished the game with 181 yards through the air and 144 more on the ground—and the Cardinals (5-1, 3-1) wasted no time, slicing through the Duke defense to cross midfield in five plays. The Blue Devil defense—which had employed a successful bend-but-don’t-break approach for most of the night—finally came up with an answer for Louisville’s speed, forcing a 46-yard field goal attempt.
The attempt sailed far left off the foot of O’Hara, but Borders took out the kicker’s legs to keep the drive alive. From there, the Cardinal offense punched it in with a two-yard keeper from Jackson to put the game out of reach.
“There’s no such things as moral victories in football. If you do that, you’re accepting a loss,” Duke redshirt senior defensive tackle A.J. Wolf said. “Did I think we played overall well? Yeah, but you never want to accept defeat.”
The Blue Devil defense contained Louisville’s offense well in the first half—allowing just three points in the final four possessions—but the Cardinals started the second half with a bang.
After sophomore linebacker Ben Humphreys nearly forced a fumble deep in Louisville territory—officials ruled forward progress had been stopped—running back Jeremy Smith burst through an open hole and broke a few tackles, galloping for an 80-yard touchdown that put the Cardinals up 17-7.
From there, Louisville got in its own way with clumsy mistakes on the two ensuing drives that prevented it from putting the game away. A fumble deep in Blue Devil territory and a key penalty followed by a missed 42-yard field goal kept the score at 17-7—and Duke’s hopes of an upset alive.
“That’s our philosophy. They may be able to drive end to end, but when they get to the redzone, it’s a stone wall,” Humphreys said. “That’s when the real players show up. They can drive from the 25 to the 25, but once they get to the 25, it doesn’t really matter. You got a stone wall, and we did a great job of that tonight.”
Both offenses looked sharp in the early going before the defenses—aided by a light rain—settled in and turned the rest of the first half into a defensive struggle. Louisville marched down the field on the game’s opening drive, scoring in less than four minutes on a five-yard touchdown pass from Jackson to wide receiver Jaylen Smith.
The Blue Devils responded with an equally impressive scoring drive that culminated in a nine-yard toss from Jones to tight end Erich Schneider and evened the score at seven. Duke’s first touchdown was set up by a 51-yard slip screen to sophomore T.J. Rahming.
“We felt like that if we were deliberate and if we were smart about what we were doing, then we could have some success,” Blue Devil head coach David Cutcliffe said. “So, I don’t think it surprised anybody, but it certainly helped to have us score early against a team of that magnitude.”
Duke now enjoys a bye week before its next ACC contest, a road tilt at Georgia Tech Oct. 29.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.