Just eight minutes into in the first quarter against Rutgers, the Blue Devils' defense was looking for an opportunity to give Duke an early advantage in what was a 0-0 ballgame. It had caused a fumble near midfield earlier in the quarter, but the Blue Devils could not score any points from it, so the defense decided to get a little closer to the Scarlet Knights' offense. On first-and-10 from the Rutgers 10-yard line, the defense pressured and wrapped up Rutgers quarterback Ray Lucas, causing a fumble that Duke recovered on the 12-yard line.
Seconds later, Laymarr Marshall was being congratulated for scoring Duke's first touchdown on the night, but if you go back a few steps, you'll see that junior Billy Granville was responsible for this score.
After seeing that his teammates had Lucas wrapped up, Granville made the heads-up play of going after the ball for a turnover. Not only did he cause one fumble, but by the end of the night Granville had made a team-high 14 tackles from his inside linebacker position and had recovered two other fumbles caused by the Duke defense.
The key to Granville is not only his ability to play hard-nosed football, but the intelligence he does it with. Besides knowing what to do in certain situations while the play is moving, the coaching staff has selected Granville as the "quarterback" of the defense. For the past two years Granville has been responsible for calling the signals for Duke's defense. This responsibility has made Granville not only one of the on-field leaders of the defense, but also someone that the other players listen to off the field. After the Florida State game, the defense had a players' meeting to discuss what needed to be done.
"After that game, we had a players' meeting and we talked about what we have to do," Granville said. "It wasn't about Xs and Os and coming up with this scheme or that scheme, it just came down to attitude and how bad do we want it--getting that fire and desire back in our hearts that we had last fall."
Although it's easy to imagine Granville storming around a locker room, yelling and overturning benches, Granville assured everyone at Monday's press conference that the meeting was a low-key one where the players just talked about things and appealed to the pride factor of a team that allowed only 128 rushing yards per game last year.
Despite Granville's ability to calmly lead his team on and off the field, his playing style is anything but calm. This 6-foot-3, 235-pound All-Atlantic Coast Conference candidate can be seen all over the field. After leading the team in tackles last year with 115, Granville has come back even stronger--racking up 24 tackles in his first two games this season. All told, Granville has 200 tackles as a Blue Devil. Later this season, Granville should move into 10th place on Duke's career tackles list at 267 and continue his ascent upwards.
Granville's ability to make so many tackles is shared between a Duke defensive scheme which allows the linebackers to be aggressive, and Granville's own personal ferociousness against the run.
"I feel that my strength is against the run," Granville said. "I look forward to games where I can get into the action and make a lot of tackles."
Granville will get this opportunity against Army, a team which runs a wishbone offense that will often only throw five to 10 times a game. Granville is surely looking forward to this game after his performance against the Black Knights last year, when he racked up a career high 18 tackles.
"It's a pretty different mentality," Granville said. "I mean right now we've got to get ready for a physical game, a team that's going to run the ball on third-and-6 and we're used to teams that throw the ball on third-and-3. We're definitely going to have to step up this week and key up for a physical game.
"Coach Goldsmith said we're going to get back to the basics and play some great defense. We need to get back to the basics where we can just lineup and play straight-up football."
Last year Duke dismantled Army in Durham 43-7. Back from that team are eight starters and a fired-up Billy Granville who is looking forward to a team that wants to run the ball at him.
It looks like Army may want to consider throwing the ball a little more this time out.
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