Dueling columnists: Too many pieces to replace for Blue Devils in 2015

My high school football coach told us every day after practice, “You either get better or you get worse, but you don’t stay the same.” I’ve seen this turn out to be true in every sports-related instance, and this season, unfortunately, will be a step back for Duke.

This isn’t about the Blue Devils losing the players that defined their meteoric rise—it’s that Duke simply doesn’t have the same combination of talent and experience waiting in the wings to replace them. That’s not to say the fresh faces are bad—the days of Duke’s recruiting woes are long gone. But the ascension the Blue Devils have become so used to for the past three years will take a sharp, but brief, downturn.

If you have been following the Blue Devils since 2012, you can attest to the fact that every subsequent year had a sense of excitement about it—a sense that this season would be better than the last. And instead of going out and disappointing, Duke actually came through, bowl games aside. This season breathed more of an air of uncertainty. Not that Duke would be bad, per se, because those days seem to be behind us. But this past year’s graduating class was a devastating one for Duke and a welcomed one by the rest of the ACC Coastal.

Plenty of folks want to cast shade in the direction of Thomas Sirk, but I will pass for the time being. Anthony Boone was a serviceable quarterback and usually put the Blue Devils in position to win, but as he proved in multiple losses and each of Duke’s past two bowl games, there was good Boone and bad Boone. Sirk, for what it’s worth, seems to be much more even-keel of a player because he knows his role well.

But the quarterback needs someone to throw to, and this year’s squad has a glaring weakness in comparison to last year’s—no Jamison Crowder.

There is not one player—or even two—on Duke’s roster who come close to affecting a game in the way Crowder did in his time in Durham. You can add together the 2014 receiving yard totals of every returning receiver and it still doesn’t really come that close to Crowder’s 1,044.

Yes, the Blue Devils have a pair of redshirt freshmen in Chris Taylor and Trevon Lee that are expected to come in and make an impact, but even with them, Max McCaffrey and Johnell Barnes, the passing game is going to suffer because Crowder was, for Duke, an all-time great. Sirk missed out on throwing to Crowder, but if his mid-range game is fine, then the passing game will be fine. But don’t expect anyone to come close to matching the numbers Crowder racked up or compiling the list of game- and season-saving plays that he did.

This then begs the question: Should this be all that concerning? The Blue Devils still return three of their top four running backs and three of their starting five on the offensive line, so having a less explosive passing game is something they can survive for a season while the young guns develop. But again, you have to look at who you have back in the fold and who is gone.

Laken Tomlinson and Takoby Cofield were the two best linemen on the Duke line last year, though you could make an argument for center Matt Skura. But even so, Tomlinson was an All-American and first-round draft pick who will probably end up starting for the Detroit Lions very soon. Tomlinson’s talents were definitely improved a lot in the past two years, but he was what Gabe Brandner, Lucas Patrick and Cody Robinson are not—consistent. And with an offense that is going to lean heavily on the run this year, having to replace your two best linemen with players who rank as average at best is not exactly a great look.

Duke still has seven games I think the Blue Devils should win, and the rest are all still contests that the Blue Devils could win. That is to say that none of their games can be deemed unwinnable, especially considering Duke knocked off Georgia Tech—which went on to win the Coastal—in Atlanta last year. The Coastal is both weak and unstable, so Duke can be in the conversation, even if it’s clear that if the Yellow Jackets plays like they did at the end of 2014, they will run away with the division. Duke’s schedule is easy, but the Coastal is an unpredictable beast, so I’m going to hold off on saying any game is easy and instead say that the Blue Devils’ chances to be bowl eligible look pretty good.

Duke has placed us in the mindset of thinking about should-win games instead of games that are just winnable, and that’s a success on its own. But in terms of overall football quality and end result, this year won’t be one in which they take another step forward, and that’s okay. The Blue Devils are replacing bona fide stars out wide and up front, and the guys stepping in for them are going to need some time before they can really explode. After all, sometimes you need to step back to set yourself up for the leap forward.

Read this column's companion piece: Brian Mazur lays out the ways in which Duke's infusion of new talent can keep the Blue Devils in the Coastal chase.