It’s becoming a common occurrence throughout this increasingly impressive football season for the postgame press conferences to double as a celebration of this year’s vastly improved Duke offense.
And indeed, Saturday’s was no different. Amid the almost comically uproarious cheering coming from the adjacent Blue Devil locker room, a crowd gathered around quarterback Thaddeus Lewis—he of the fourth consecutive 300-yard passing games—while nose guard Charlie Hatcher sat relatively unnoticed, despite his crucial rule in the victory.
What does this all mean? Possibly that many have missed something crucial about the reasons for Duke’s three straight conference wins (that’s the first time since 1989, in case you missed it).
That crucial something: Duke’s defense has been just as integral to the team’s recent success as its offense. If not for big stops by the defense against Virginia Saturday, the Blue Devils would not have come away with their first win in a decade at Jefferson’s university.
“Our defense played a complete football game,” head coach David Cutcliffe said. “They had a lot of big hits, did a complete job of stopping the run and did a tremendous job of competing and challenging every pass.”
From its play in the first quarter, when Virginia’s offense could only muster one total yard, to when the Blue Devils hit the locker room 15 minutes of play later—only up 9-3 despite being inside the Cavaliers’ 30-yard line three times—the defense made it clear that it would keep Duke in the game even if the offense continued to stagnate.
Its finest moment, though, did not come from its role in stopping Virginia’s first half attack. It came in how it nailed the coffin closed—the game was, in fact, on Halloween—on the Cavaliers’ chances with eight minutes to go.
After Lewis hit Donovan Varner for a 40-yard pass in what was the first time all game that the Blue Devils got a big offensive play, Duke had just three yards to go to put itself up one on Virginia. Then, Re’quan Boyette was tackled for a loss of four yards, and Lewis threw a pick in the back of the end zone. Things looked as bad as the hastily-put-together costumes in the student section of Scott Stadium.
The Cavaliers had the ball at the 20, up five, with the opportunity to eat up a lot of clock or make it a two-possession game. Duke’s defense, said Ayanga Okpokowuruk, knew that it was crunch time.
“We knew we had to step up. Everyone was looking into each other’s eyes and trying to fire each other up,” Okpokowuruk said.
Three plays on the vital Virginia drive resulted in four total yards. The defense had once again given the offense a chance to win the game.
“That was a big stage in the game,” Cutcliffe said. “They did the natural thing to try and run the football, and they really did not have a ton of success [throughout the game] running it, so our guys responded. It was huge.”
The stop set up what would be the contest’s most memorable play—Lewis somehow getting the ball off while being swarmed by a ferocious pass rush, finding Conner Vernon for a 42-yard touchdown which put Duke up 18-17.
Now it was time for Okpokowuruk and Hatcher to go ahead and win the game for Duke.
“Coach [Marion] Hobby kept telling us to finish our rushes, and we had plans to pressure the quarterback,” said Okpokowuruk. “I tackled him and went for the ball. I honestly didn’t know it had come out until I saw Hatcher running with it.”
“I saw the ball had popped out, and I grabbed it and scored. It was such a surreal experience,” Hatcher said. “We always talk about who’s going to make the big play. I didn’t know it’d be me, and I didn’t know how to react.”
The sidelines did. Okpokowurk’s forced fumble and Hatcher’s recovery for a touchdown sent the Blue Devil sidelines into a frenzy. A sea of orange flocked to the exits as soon as Hatcher’s feet touched the end zone.
The score put Duke up 25-17 with 3:22 left in the game. And despite the mass exodus of Wahoos from Scott Stadium, there was still plenty of time for Virginia to mount a comeback.
But that didn’t happen, thanks to Jeremy Ringfield. The redshirt junior laid a colossal hit on quarterback Jameel Sewell when the Cavaliers were forced to go for it on 4th-and-10 on their 28-yard line.
It was nothing new—just the knockout punch from an overlooked unit.
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