It's funny how one dropped ball can make such a difference in a game. Saturday night, the Duke football team lost to the Virginia Cavaliers 26-10, but it could have easily been a different story.
If Ben Erdeljac had caught a pass early in the second quarter, the Blue Devils could have gone into halftime with a 10-3 lead.
"I think we played hard, but I don't think we played hard enough," Duke coach Carl Franks said. "I think we dropped footballs that were right in our hands. You need good things to happen early and then when we had a chance to lead, we would have been in a totally different mindset."
When Romine had Erdeljac in his sights in the endzone at the start of the second quarter, the Blue Devils were at the UVa 18-yard line and driving in for a touchdown. Erdeljac cut left to break away from the coverage when the ball hit his hands and dropped to the ground.
"I guarantee that I can name you four passes that we just stone-cold dropped, and some of them weren't very long passes," Franks said.
"Our hands were turned wrong; we looked like a very poor fundamental team in catching the football. That's two weeks in a row that two touchdown passes have been dropped and touchdown passes are precious no matter how many you get. You just can't drop those balls."
Before the missed opportunity to take the lead, Duke made a very strong showing on both sides of the ball in the first quarter.
After struggling with the running game the past two weeks, Duke turned to senior Duane Epperson, who broke past the Cavaliers' defense and rushed for 36 yards in the game's opening quarter. The offensive production kept Duke even at 3-3 until the final minute of the first half.
"I was pleased that we ran the ball pretty good in the first half," Franks said.
But it was Duke's defense that did much of the work, especially early in the game. Only 5:30 into the game, Duke sophomore Jamyon Small tore through the line and sacked UVa quarterback Dan Ellis for a loss of seven yards. It was the first of four Blue Devil sacks on the evening.
But in the second half, the energetic Duke defense appeared to be wearing down.
After Charles Porter and defensive tackle Troy Austin nailed Cavaliers running back Jonathan Ward for a loss of one yard, Ellis finally broke the game open. The quarterback connected on a 55-yard pass to Billy McMullen for a touchdown that put Duke in a 20-3 hole.
"Dan Ellis played his tail off," said Franks. "He got hit a few times, got up, and made some good throws. He made some good plays and I think our guys made some bad plays, You can look at it either way you want to, but you've got to give them the credit for [their play calling] and we've got to find guys that want to compete and try to prevent them."
To their credit, the Blue Devils reacted immediately when their offense regained possession on the next sequence.
After catching the first pass of his collegiate career-a 22-yarder early in the game-Duke freshman Nic Brzezinski hauled in a 28-yard pass from Romine to get the Blue Devils moving. On the next play, Romine struck again, hitting Duke senior Nic Hartofilis with a 33-yard pass. Moments later, on first-and-goal, Romine kept the ball and broke through the line for a touchdown, the Blue Devils' first of the season. Romine credited his offensive line with help.
"I thought they did a great job," Romine said. "I didn't get hit. All credit goes to those guys, hats off to them."
The touchdown narrowed the lead to 20-10, but that was all the scoring that Duke could muster. The Cavaliers responded with a 31-yard touchdown from Ellis to McMullen. The extra point was blocked, making the final score 26-10.
"I hope people start to get angry and they very well should be," said Nic Hartofilis. "Our expectation is to get a win. If we don't expect a win every week, we shouldn't be playing. We've got to keep working hard."
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