Two weeks before its first game of the season, Duke has suffered its first loss of the season.
Senior running back Re'quan Boyette, the team's leading rusher for the past two seasons who was expected to play a major role in new head coach David Cutcliffe's offense, underwent orthoscopic surgery Sunday for a leg injury sustained in Saturday's intrasquad scrimmage. Boyette will be sidelined indefinitely.
"We're certainly disappointed for Re'quan, but we know that he'll do everything in his power to return to the field," Cutcliffe said in a statement.
The Blue Devils will likely look to senior Clifford Harris to replace Boyette, whose 1,072 career yards rank him seventh on the list of active ACC players. In a 90-play situational spring scrimmage, Boyette scampered for 139 yards on 18 carries. He was certainly one of the team's most impressive spring performers.
Other options at the position are converted cornerback Tony Jackson, who rushed for 85 yards on five carries in Duke's spring game, redshirt freshman Cameron Jones and true freshman Jay Hollingsworth.
We'll have more on Boyette's injury, prognosis and its effect as we do some further reporting.
--by Ben Cohen
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