The Blue Devils had the Hurricanes right where they wanted them. After capitalizing on Adrian Aye-Darko's second pick of the day with Raphael Chestnut's touchdown grab just one minute into the third quarter, Duke had a 24-14 lead and was slowing the Miami attack.
But then the Blue Devils dropped the ball.
Sloppy play from Duke's receiving corps, especially and most surprisingly from star wideout Eron Riley, prevented the offense from ever picking up steam in the second half. That, combined with a couple of key drops on defense and special teams, reflected the Blue Devils' glaring inability to maintain their focus for the entire 60 minutes. this opened the door for the athletically superior Hurricanes to put up 35 unanswered points after Chestnut's score.
"We were really excited at that point," Aye-Darko said of Duke's second-half advantage. "But we have to remember that it's a four-quarter game."
"The plays that were given to us, we didn't make, and we didn't capitalize on the turnovers that were given to us, as well," running back Clifford Harris said. "We didn't execute the way we needed to in the second half. A couple of dropped balls here and there, running backs making a few bad cuts... it's little things like that that can actually make or break a play."
And while it was the little things that perhaps cost the Blue Devils the game, it was the substandard performance of a major player which shook the team the most.
If Duke has come to rely on only one player, it is Riley. Coming into Saturday's contest, the senior wide receiver was averaging about five catches and more than one touchdown per game. He led the ACC with six touchdown grabs, and in his best games-against Navy Sept. 13 and Virginia Sept. 27-Duke scored routs.
But even when things went perfectly against Miami, Riley never seemed to have his bearings straight.
A nifty halfback pass from Harris found a wide-open Riley streaking down the field, and he caught the ball in stride. But he couldn't keep his balance and tripped over his own feet five yards short of pay dirt.
Things didn't get easier for Riley, who seemed never able to regain his composure. He muffed several easy receptions, which all seemed to bounce right off of his hands.
"Our guy that is our leader, Eron, struggled," head coach David Cutcliffe said. "I don't think his confidence will be hurt. He's been hurt with his hand, and maybe that's in his head. Maybe that's the case, but he's been catching the ball great in practice, so it certainly shouldn't happen in a ball game."
Even quarterback Thaddeus Lewis was adamant that nothing was physically wrong with the stalwart receiver, who has been nagged by a thumb injury for some of this season.
"Sometimes you tend to take your eyes off the ball and try to run before you catch it and things of that nature, and some of those things we was doing out there," Lewis said. "When you're playing in a big game and your eyes get big, you see the ball coming, and you know you can make a big play, sometimes you tend to forget the little things."
After a particularly bad series late in the third quarter-one in which Riley let two easy grabs slide through his grasp almost consecutively-the wideout seemed rattled and was limited in action for the rest of the game.
Even with the offense sputtering, Duke had plenty of chances to make plays on defense. The defense pressured Miami's freshman quarterback Jacory Harris into tossing two interceptions and starter Robert Marve was pulled after an errant pass of his was picked off by Aye-Darko in the second quarter.
But the Blue Devils missed a chance to pull the plug on the Hurricanes' second-half rally while it was in its early stages.
Backed up on his own 2-yard line and trailing Duke by three, Miami's Harris was flushed out of the pocket and was hit as he threw by Blue Devil defensive end Ayanga Okpokowuruk. A wobbly football fluttered to about the 5-yard line, in and out of the hands of Tauiliili, who was rumbling towards the endzone. With that, what would have given Duke a 10-point edge amounted to nothing more than another missed opportunity.
Even the Blue Devils' special-teams unit looked out of sync, struggling to return much of anything or get their hands on the ball. Late in the game, the Hurricanes turned to squib kicking the ball high in the air in an attempt to force a turnover by catching the Duke return unit off guard-they did just that.
As the game wore on, the Blue Devils got worse, and Cutcliffe seemed intent on holding individuals accountable for their mistakes.
He made no excuses for the deterioration of his team's performance.
"We just flat didn't make plays, and it's unacceptable, and we're not gonna use the cliché, 'We're gonna go back to work,'" he said. "We're gonna go back to work smartly. I'm really interested in looking at this tape to see who the real responders are in the tough times. It's disappointing to me that we didn't respond when the game got tough any better than we did."
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