What a day for Duke wide receiver Jon Jensen -- in every area but the victory column.
Jensen caught 14 passes for 174 yards, both career bests, against North Carolina on Saturday in Duke's 41-40 loss. He also scored a touchdown, his second of the season. It was a good way for the fifth-year senior to leave his last game at Wallace Wade Stadium -- except for the final score.
"When it's your last shot, you just want to make it your best," Jensen said. "Obviously, it's real disappointing. I think we're past the point of moral victories. But I think the nice thing is that the effort we've given throughout the year has been different than we've given in the past.
"I couldn't be prouder of all my teammates, especially the senior class, who's kind of taken this program and turned it around."
Jensen almost single-handedly moved the Blue Devils down the field at times. He was consistently open over the middle of the field just a few yards past the line of scrimmage. Jensen said that the Tar Heel defense tried to change its scheme to stop him, but that the Duke coaches figured out a way to help him continue to get open.
"They were running a lot of deep coverages and dropping the linebackers," Jensen said. "So what we thought we could exploit was some of the underneath routes, and those were effective for us. When they made an adjustment, we made a formation adjustment which left the underneath patterns open once again."
Although Jensen appeared to get open on the same play almost every time, that was not always the case.
"The thing about the play was that it was not always necessarily the same play," Jensen said. "It was some underneath routes that we have on a package of plays."
The Blue Devil offense stayed with that package of plays for almost the entire game. Duke quarterback Spence Fischer dropped the ball to Jensen over the heads of oncoming pass-rushers several times on such plays, but Fischer also threw an interception on one such play with Duke driving late in the fourth quarter.
Fischer's pass on third-and-10 from the UNC 28-yard line deflected high into the air and was picked off by Tar Heel cornerback Fuzzy Lee. Duke trailed 41-38 with 1:20 left in the game when that play occurred, and that Blue Devil possession turned out to be the team's last good offensive opportunity. After the game, the quarterback praised his receiver and admitted he would have liked to have had that throw back.
"He had a great game," Fischer said. "I just wish I didn't light him up like I did there at the end. We had been burning them, but we just kind of went to the well too often there.
"Their safety came up. They were expecting that, and I didn't see it. It's just a credit to their defensive staff for coming up with a call like that."
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