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Game commentary
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Big-play defense jumpstarts offense with 7 turnovers**
Just as it had done a week earlier in an 70-26 loss to Florida State, the Duke defense Saturday allowed its opponent to march down the field consistently. The Blue Devils surrendered 426 yards in total offense and forced Rutgers to punt on only three of its 16 possessions.
But unlike last week, Duke made the big plays it needed to in key situations to stop the Scarlet Knights.
Against Rutgers, the opportunistic Blue Devil defense found the ingredient that led to its surprising success last season--clutch play. Duke forced Rutgers into seven turnovers and stopped the Scarlet Knights on three fourth-down situations.
"Turnovers are everything for our defense," said junior linebacker Billy Granville, who forced one fumble, recovered two others and stuffed Rutgers quarterback Ray Lucas on a fourth-down play. "We're not the biggest defense. . . so we have to strip the ball, we have to pick the balls off, create those turnovers to get the ball back to our offense.
"We're not the type of defense that's just going to manhandle other teams, so we have to use our quickness and our ability to create turnovers."
Not only did the Blue Devils prevent Rutgers from scoring, but on a night when the Duke offense failed to produce a single sustained drive, the defense set up all 24 of the team's points with its takeaways. As the Blue Devil defenders saw things, their outstanding performance was the least they could do to make up for their pitiful performance the previous week.
"You've got to understand that some games, it's not going to work out to your liking," Granville said. "The offense may not be able to move the ball all the time, and we feel that we let the offense down last week, so we had to do something."
Last year Duke permitted only 14 points per game en route to a blazing 7-0 start. In those seven contests, the Blue Devils conceded an average of 318 total yards, but they frequently cut short opponents' drives as they forced 13 more turnovers than they committed.
Last week, though, the defense lacked the intensity and alertness that propelled it a year ago. Duke's players and coaches agreed that the defense needed a major attitude adjustment to prove that its lackluster performance against Florida State was only a fluke.
"We felt like we didn't play with as much intensity as we should have last week, and we made it a point this week in practice to pick up the intensity," senior linebacker James Kirkland said. "No matter how tired you got, no matter how long we were out there, you were going to do it full speed and you were going to go with all-out effort every play, and I think it showed tonight on the field."
Head coach Fred Goldsmith, who expressed his displeasure with the defense after the Florida State debacle, made no attempt to hide his feelings about the Blue Devils' defensive effort Saturday.
"I was so proud that time after time after time our defense came back," Goldsmith said. "They just fought every which way. I'm very, very proud of this football team."
The Blue Devils looked upon the Rutgers game as possibly the most important game of their season, a contest that could forecast whether or not they would enjoy a successful campaign. In that sense, and because of the defense's perseverance, Saturday's game evoked memories of last season's 13-10 win over East Carolina. As in the ECU game, the defense shut down a high-powered opponent while the Duke offense struggled, and in the end, the Blue Devils displayed their toughness in outlasting a gritty adversary.
"I can't explain how important it was," Kirkland said. "To us, this was basically the game that determines our season, just like the ECU game was last year. This will determine if we are able to go to a bowl game, this will determine what kind of character we have as a team."
The Blue Devils proved plenty in their win, even though the Scarlet Knights beat them in nearly every statistical category. No matter what the stats indicated, Duke finished ahead on the scoreboard, suggesting that this year's squad may already understand a concept that many more talented clubs never learn--how to win.
"To be honest, I didn't think about losing," Kirkland said. "My whole thought process is where we can score. We had caused a lot of turnovers, we knew we could cause some more turnovers, so our thought process was, `We can cause a turnover and score."'
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