Any football guru will attest that big plays are more common through the air than on the ground. So it was certainly a surprise Saturday when Georgia Tech—a team reliant on the triple-option ground attack—used the big pass play to rout Duke, which, despite its proficient passing attack, failed multiple times to answer in kind.
The statistical divide could not have been clearer: Georgia Tech averaged 19.4 yards per pass attempt, while the Blue Devils averaged only 6.2. The Yellow Jackets averaged nearly six yards per carry, far superior to Duke’s paltry one.
Indeed, in a game where the odds were already stacked against the Blue Devils, their failure to stop the big play proved too big of a flaw to overcome.
“I thought we did a pretty solid job on the run, but those pass plays really opened it up for them and I think that really killed us,” defensive tackle Kinney Rucker said.
For most of the first half, the Blue Devils were able to limit the Yellow Jackets’ vaunted rushing attack. Duke’s defense forced a three-and-out on Georgia Tech’s first drive after stuffing two triple options at the line. On the next Yellow Jacket possession, quarterback Josh Nesbitt was stopped short on 3rd-and-2, forcing another punt.
But the Blue Devils’ stellar early efforts against the run came with a price, as the Duke secondary was forced to cover taller and faster Georgia Tech receivers one-on-one. Midway through the second quarter, cornerback Leon Wright was burned by Yellow Jacket receiver Embry Peeples along the sideline, and a subsequent missed tackle allowed Peeples to take the ball down to the Duke 29-yard line, leading to a Georgia Tech touchdown.
And as the half concluded, Nesbitt hit Stephen Hill for a 32-yard touchdown pass down the middle, again against single coverage. That touchdown allowed a manageable 11-point halftime deficit to balloon to a more intimidating three-score disadvantage for the Blue Devils.
“You’re not sitting back there playing zone defense because of [the triple option],” Duke head coach David Cutcliffe said. “We got one-on-one with them, and when you get one-on-one with them they make the plays, which they did. They picked up big chunks of yardage.”
As the Georgia Tech pass offense heated up, the Blue Devils were forced to change their defensive focus. This opened up more running lanes for the triple-option attack, and the big plays came in bunches. Nesbitt opened the second half with a 20-yard scamper up the middle, followed two plays later by a 31-yard pass to Anthony Allen that put Georgia Tech in the red zone.
After the subsequent Dwyer touchdown put Georgia Tech up a very comfortable 25 points, the rout was on.
Duke, though, had its chances early to answer Georgia Tech’s big plays with some of its own, only to see those opportunities slip away. After claiming a seven-point lead early, a botched fake punt by Georgia Tech gave Duke the ball in prime scoring position at the Yellow Jacket 14-yard line. But the Blue Devil offense was unable to take full advantage, settling for a Will Snyderwine field goal and a 10-point lead.
Then, down 21-10 in the second, quarterback Thaddeus Lewis and running back Desmond Scott executed a picture-perfect play-action fake on 3rd-and-1. As Scott dove over the line, albeit it without the ball, receiver Conner Vernon ran down the middle of the field with no defender in sight. But despite having solid protection, Lewis floated the ball over Vernon’s head, and what should have been a gift touchdown instead resulted in a punt.
“I’d give anything to get that one back,” Lewis said.
Had Duke breached the end zone after the failed fake punt and hit Vernon on that fateful play, the game would have been tied at 21. Instead, missed opportunities conserved the 11-point deficit that quickly spiraled as the Duke defense faltered.
Indeed, Georgia Tech’s surprisingly explosive passing attack proved too much for the Blue Devils to handle, especially when Duke could not respond as it had in victories earlier this season.
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