NEW ORLEANS—On a muggy Louisiana night, the Blue Devils found their footing and pulled away from an unlucky Green Wave squad to capture their first win of the year.
Duke opened the 2015 regular season with a commanding 37-7 win against Tulane Thursday on the road at Yulman Stadium. First-time starting quarterback Thomas Sirk led the way for the Blue Devils, completing 27-of-40 passes for 289 yards and two touchdowns in his debut performance.
“I wasn’t really nervous,” Sirk said. “We prepared really well for them, and they came in with a great plan, showed us a few things different than we anticipated, but I think we came out and handled it.”
Using the read option, Sirk and sophomore running back Shaun Wilson gashed the Green Wave on the ground throughout the first half, starting on Duke’s second drive, when the two combined for 51 yards, including a 21-yard burst from Wilson to push the Blue Devils to the Tulane 17-yard line.
The first points of the season came three plays later when, following an incomplete pass into the end zone from Sirk, senior Ross Martin nailed a 32-yard field goal with 5:41 remaining to put Duke ahead 3-0.
“During film, we realized that their linebackers like to play downhill really fast, so the read option, if Sirk decided to give it or decided to keep it, it was basically off the read,” Wilson said. “It worked really effectively.”
The Blue Devils (1-0) would not be held to field goals all night, though.
On the second play of the second quarter, Tulane’s Peter Picerelli booted a beautiful 55-yard punt to an awaiting Ryan Smith. Smith took the ball straight up the field before cutting back toward the middle of the field, where he was wrapped up by a Green Wave defender. But when he tried to take Smith to the ground, the Las Vegas native rolled on top of the Tulane player and continued upfield to complete a 25-yard return and set the Blue Devils up on the Green Wave 39-yard line.
Sirk then settled in, reeling off runs of 13 and seven yards and completing a 14-yard pass to redshirt senior tight end Braxton Deaver—his first since the 2013 Chick-fil-A Bowl after missing last season due to an ACL tear. After Tulane (0-1) snuffed out two straight plays with the Blue Devils knocking on the door at the three-yard line, Duke finally broke into the end zone on a shovel pass from Sirk to senior running back Shaquille Powell to put the visitors up 10-0 with 11:27 remaining in the half.
“Thomas Sirk is a winner in every aspect,” Duke head coach David Cutcliffe said. “He’s accurate with the football. People who play man-to-man as much as they did, they’re not going to intercept passes if they’re accurate.”
When it was all said and done, Sirk’s first start as the new Blue Devil signal caller was a successful one, thanks to another young, fresh bunch of players—the Duke wide receivers.
The Blue Devil receiving corps entered the game with an abundance of talent but faced questions surrounding the lack of experience and star power that the unit has boasted in the past few years with Jamison Crowder and Issac Blakeney. Even so, the newest iteration of Duke’s passing game looked promising in the season opener, with freshman T.J. Rahming and junior Johnell Barnes combining for 179 yards.
“Our receiving corps played really well,” Cutcliffe said. “I was concerned going into this game. I still think we’ve got a ways to go, but I was certainly very pleased with the start. I had a conversation with Johnell—he grew up. That little bit, you know, he played like a junior, which is what I told him. ‘You’re not a puppy anymore—let’s go.’ T.J. Rahming, who is a puppy but doesn’t play like one, he’s got a lot of talent. ”
Like Crowder, neither wideout is particularly intimidating in stature, but also like the former Duke great, both Blue Devils used a combination of sheer speed and sharp cuts to find and create plenty of open space over the middle. Offensive coordinator Scottie Montgomery made sure to ease Sirk into the offense, dialing up numerous screen passes to either shifty wideout and allowing them to work in space rather than have Sirk try to carve up the Green Wave secondary downfield.
Although much of the fanfare entering the game had to do with Duke’s new-look offense, the Blue Devil defense, led by safety Jeremy Cash, came through against a Green Wave offense boasting three running backs that all cracked 450 yards a year ago. Duke held Tulane to 25 yards on 23 attempts after allowing Tulane to rack up 231 yards in last year’s contest in Durham. Even with strong-armed redshirt sophomore Tanner Lee under center, the Green Wave achieved limited success, ending the contest a mere 2-of-14 on third down conversions, something the defense took pride in after the game.
“Throughout training camp, Coach made an emphasis of getting off the field,” redshirt junior DeVon Edwards said. “So we know when it’s third down, fourth down, we need to give it our all, because you never know what play is going to change the game. Us knowing that that’s the last play of the drive, everybody’s like, ‘Alright, we’ve got to get them off the field by any means.’”
Tulane seemed to have something going in the third quarter following an errant pitch-turned-fumble by Sirk, but the Blue Devil defense came through once again, as sophomore linebacker Zavier Carmichael snagged a deflected pass just before the ball hit the ground to give Duke back the ball. Lee finished the game with 246 yards, one score and one interception.
The Green Wave finally got on the board in the fourth quarter, when Lee found receiver Devon Breaux over the middle for a shutout-preventing 76-yard touchdown strike to pull the home team within 23-7. But Edwards answered right back, taking the ensuing kick-off 95 yards for a score and putting to rest any momentum Tulane had created just seconds earlier.
“I really didn’t see anything until the last second,” Edwards said. “I was looking and I just hit a hole, and it just opened up in front of me. It happened so fast that I just picked a hole and went with my gut.”
Reserve running back Zach Boden tacked on a one-yard score with 1:31 remaining to cement the final score. Duke will return to Durham to open play at Wallace Wade Stadium against N.C. Central Sept. 12 at 6 p.m.
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