Their statistics were overwhelming.
16 first downs. 195 rushing yards. 279 total yards. 51 plays. Time of possession: 23 minutes and 13 seconds.
For the opening 30 minutes of Saturday's contest the Blue Devils abused Wake Forest up and down the field. Alex Wade ripped off yards by the chunk and Chris Douglas scampered around the Wake defensive line, looking fully recovered from his ankle injuries. The defense dominated as well, holding the Demon Deacons to just 79 total yards and three first downs.
The halftime score: Wake Forest 14. Duke 10.
Come again?
Despite manhandling the favored Demon Deacons for the entire first half the Blue Devils found themselves trailing thanks to a blocked field goal and an interception, both returned for touchdowns.
Four times did Duke have first-and-goal situations. They came away with just 10 points, while giving up seven after Wake Forest defensive back Eric King scooped up Brent Garber's blocked kick and ran untouched for 90 yards.
Instead of leaving the field for halftime with a 20-point lead the Blue Devils jogged off trailing by four.
In the aftermath of Duke's 36-10 blowout loss, that missed opportunity haunted everyone in the Blue Devil locker room.
"What hurts is that we go out there and we don't play as smart as we can play," said head coach Carl Franks, visibly upset. "When we should have been up, we're down 14-0. I mean, that hurts.... Those kind of things hurt more than the differential on the scoreboard."
Duke retook the field thinking, hoping that Wake Forest couldn't possibly get any more big plays. Unfortunately, though, the worst was still to come, including a fumbled punt inside the 20, another fumble at midfield and a slew of missed tackles.
One play stood out from the rest. One play deflated Duke's sails for good, opening up the flood gates for a depressingly lopsided defeat.
The defining moment was Nick Burney's 43-yard touchdown jaunt up the middle of Duke defense. Upon taking the handoff Burney made one cut and took off untouched, unapproached even, straight up the gut of what had previously been an impenetrable Duke defense.
"I expected [the hole] to open up, but not as wide as it did," Burney said. "I was like 'oh, my God!'"
Burney's sprint rattled the Blue Devil defense, which rallied to hold Wake Forest to 3-and-out on its next possession, but simply fell apart after Kenneth Stanford's muffed punt. The Demon Deacons would score touchdowns on their next three possessions.
But it was Burney's shockingly easy flight through the Duke secondary that rattled the Blue Devils beyond recovery. The defense had bailed out Duke's special teams miscues and red zone struggles for as long as it could. It cracked after Burney's devastating run.
"We try to keep our emotions up no matter what happens on the football field, and through all adversity," defensive end Shawn Johnson said after agreeing that the defensive unit had suffered a let down in the second half of the game. "It's really hard to do that when there's bad things going on, but that's on us."
With its defense reeling and its offense handing Wake Forest opportunity after opportunity inside Blue Devil territory, Duke simply crumpled. Trying to overcome a fluke 14-point deficit had taken an emotional toll, and Burney's backbreaking dash to the end zone proved to be the final straw.
"Football's a game of momentum," Wade noted. "When you lose momentum, it is hard to get it back. You have to give credit to Wake Forest. They got the momentum and they kept it the rest of the game.
"That's something we try to emphasize in practice-not letting those momentum shifts happen to us. But we didn't do that today."
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