EVANSTON, Ill. - After being made to feel miserable by 14 consecutive opponents, the football team desperately wanted to spoil someone else's party. The perfect scenario: Saturday, at Northwestern's christening of newly-renovated Ryan Field.
Like the old man from "Scooby Doo," the Blue Devils might have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for a few meddling kids. But Brian Musso, Tim Hughes and Adrian Autry caught on to Duke's plans and, with a few spectacular plays and some help from their teammates, sent the Blue Devils (0-2) to their 15th consecutive loss, 24-20.
Musso, in particular, made the biggest difference for the Wildcats (2-1). Through the first three quarters he caught five first-down passes, and in one crucial instance when he couldn't reach Hughes' third-down lob, he more than compensated for the miss one down later. On fourth-and-five from the Duke 33-yard line, with Northwestern trailing, 20-17, and four minutes 11 seconds remaining in the game, Musso ran a curl route, caught Hughes' short pass, faked out cornerback Tawambi Settles and dashed down the right sideline to the Duke 1. Autry dove into the end zone on the next play, putting the Wildcats ahead for good.
The Blue Devils had thrown single coverage at Musso, and the Wildcat senior made them pay.
"The fourth-and-five play was the key to the football game," Duke coach Fred Goldsmith said. "They were going to get the ball in a hurry to Musso, so if we had been in a zone, he would've caught it and had a first down, so we felt like we needed pressure and tried to play him in tight coverage. He won the battle."
That Duke gave Northwestern, the two-time defending Big Ten champion, a battle surprised many. Much of the crowd of 36,225 expected a blowout for the first game at Ryan Field, but the feisty Blue Devils refused to surrender.
They led for most of the first half, and even after starting quarterback Bobby Campbell and second-stringer David Green both went down with knee injuries, the Blue Devils still put the Wildcats' 11-game home winning streak in jeopardy. When Letavious Wilks scored on an option pitch from third-string quarterback Spencer Romine, giving his team a 20-17 edge with 6:45 left in the game, Duke appeared headed for its first win since 1995.
The ensuing kickoff, however, threw the Blue Devils back on their heels. Wildcat freshman Teddy Johnson eluded several tacklers and returned the kick to his own 40-yard line, giving Northwestern a relatively short path to the end zone. Autry ran around the left end for 11 yards, then behind the right guard for 11 more, and within a minute of Wilks' touchdown, the Wildcats were already inside Duke's 40.
Pushed to the brink, the Duke defense-which performed admirably one week after allowing 11-of-16 third-down conversions against N.C. State-again stepped up to Northwestern's challenge. It held Autry to five yards on his next two carries, and after Hughes underthrew Musso on third-and-five from the Duke 33, Northwestern faced a do-or-die situation.
Because the kickoff had given them excellent field position, the Wildcats had a choice: go for the first down, kick a field goal or punt.
"Without the kickoff return," said sophomore safety Eric Jones, "if they were fourth-and-five at their own 35, they probably would've punted the ball. They probably wouldn't have tried to go for it.
"Instead, they were on our 35, and they went for it and they got it. Musso, kudos to him, made a great play."
Were it not for Musso's heroics, Jones might have made the most important play of the game. After leading 13-3 at the half, Duke met an angry pack of Wildcats in the third quarter and got steamrolled. Northwestern's dominance of the third period gave it a 17-13 advantage, but when coach Gary Barnett inserted Chris Hamdorf-who shares the quarterback job with Hughes-he gave the Blue Devils another chance.
On his second play, Hamdorf lofted a wildly errant pass into the Duke secondary, almost directly to Jones.
"Basically, what I did was turn around, and I found the ball there right in my chest," said Jones, who made the interception at the Northwestern 48. "It wasn't a great read or anything like that, except when you're hustling, sometimes you get rewarded."
Like Jones, strong safety Darius Clark was also hustling and threw a vicious block to spring Jones' return. Jones reached the Wildcats' 22, and after a four-yard pass interference penalty on third-and-13 kept alive the Blue Devil drive, Romine's solid execution of the option propelled Duke to the end zone.
"I felt confident. I know I can do the job," said Romine, who rushed for 26 yards but completed just 2-of-7 passes for five yards in his collegiate debut. "When I get more [repetitions], I'm going to improve."
Romine apparently will get more repetitions with the first team. Campbell suffered a slight tear of the right medial collateral ligament when he took a second-quarter blind-side hit to the right knee. One quarter later, Green aggravated an injury to his left knee. Neither returned to the game, and whether either will be available for next Saturday's matchup with Army remains to be seen. Campbell will reportedly miss 3-5 weeks; Green, with a less serious injury, has been listed as questionable for the Army game.
Although key fourth-quarter plays determined the final outcome, Duke clearly lost the game during the third quarter, when it was outscored, 14-0. The Wildcats accumulated six first downs, 27 rushing yards and 102 passing yards in the entire first half; during the third quarter alone, they picked up 10 first downs, 79 yards on the ground and 119 in the air.
Northwestern's longest gain of the quarter came on a long slant pass over the middle to-guess who?-Musso, who caught Hughes' heave at midfield and beat the Blue Devil defense for a 74-yard touchdown catch.
"Northwestern made some good adjustments," said senior linebacker Chike Egbuniwe, who led Duke in tackles for the second straight week, with 17.
"They kind of went to what N.C. State did to us last week, with the slot-I formation, running straight isolation plays up the middle. It took us a little while to get adjusted to that."
Duke shone during the first half, after spotting the Wildcats a 3-0 lead. A 30-yard screen pass to split end Corey Thomas and Campbell's 29-yard option keeper around the right side anchored a 69-yard drive that set up Sims Lenhardt's 29-yard field goal. Lenhardt nailed a 45-yarder three-and-a-half minutes later, following an acrobatic, 40-yard catch that Thomas stripped from Northwestern cornerback Josh Barnes.
Lenhardt's kicking, as well as the powerful punting of freshman Brian Morton, made Duke's special-teams day a moderate success, despite the kickoff coverage problems. Morton averaged 45.7 yards on seven punts, and his high kicks gave the punt coverage team enough time to smother Musso's returns.
"They're a great punt return team," Goldsmith said. "Our punt coverage teams did an fantastic job today."
Following Campbell's second-quarter exit, the Duke defense kept the team afloat for the next six minutes, holding the Wildcats while Duke's offense adjusted to Green. Over the entire first half, the Blue Devils allowed only 27 rushing yards (most of which came on Autry's 25-yard, first-quarter dash) on 14 carries and kept Northwestern to 5.1 yards per passing attempt. Both numbers constituted a vast improvement over the opener, when N.C. State ran for 297 yards and averaged 11.7 yards on its passes.
Late in the first half, the Green-led offense took over at its own 47-yard line and got untracked. Green hit Letavious Wilks for an eight-yard third-down conversion to propel the drive, and on fourth-and-1 at the Northwestern 23, the senior signal-caller ran a right-side keeper for two yards and a first down. Two plays later, Scottie Montgomery turned a short pass into a 21-yard touchdown to put Duke ahead by 10 heading into the half.
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