After losing back-to-back games, Duke took a good long look at itself.
“We talked about our identity,” said coach Manny Diaz. “About how Duke football wins, which we thought we’d gotten away from.”
Last year’s Blue Devils went 9-3 in the regular season, including a program record-breaking comeback against UNC.
“We were defined by our mental toughness, our resiliency, our togetherness,” Diaz said.
This year, however, Duke fell behind early against Illinois and Tulane and couldn’t battle back.
“We lost sight of how Duke wins games,” Diaz concluded. “We just have to do us better.”
The Blue Devils had the opportunity to find themselves on Saturday after digging another hole early in their homecoming game against NC State.
The unbeaten Wolfpack scored in the game’s first minute, when Terrell Anderson took a CJ Bailey pass 75 yards to the end zone. It was the start of a 166-yard, two-score day for Anderson.
State seemed to take control of the action with a 16-play, 99-yard touchdown drive that took up more than nine minutes. The Wolfpack followed that with a 10-play, 80-yard march to take a 20-7 lead late in the first half.
“We had a lot of reasons early in the game not to believe and to drop our gloves,” Diaz said. “To our guys’ credit, they stayed in the fight. They kept battling.”
Darian Mensah responded with a touchdown pass, one of three on the day for him. Then Duke’s defense forced a fourth-down decision for NC State.
Facing fourth and two from Duke’s 24 with less than a minute until halftime, State coach Dave Doeren left his offense on the field.
“We didn’t even have a play lined up,” Doeren admitted after the game. “We were gonna call timeout and kick a field goal.”
Instead, as Bailey barked out commands, trying to draw Duke offside, Blue Devil pass rusher Vincent Anthony Jr. moved forward.
NC State lineman Jalen Grant, playing center despite spending much of the last few years at guard, was supposed to snap the ball if any Duke player jumped across the line. Instead, Grant jumped the gun, snapping the ball before it was clear that Anthony committed an infraction. Even on a frame-by-frame breakdown of the replay, it’s tough to tell for sure—unless, of course, the viewer is wearing red or dark blue.
“From our sideline, I thought he was offside,” Doeren said. “From the ref’s standpoint, he wasn’t, and it’s not reviewable.”
With no flag on the ground and no play to run, Bailey tried to improvise. Almost immediately, he had two Duke pass rushers in his face. Ironically, neither one was Anthony, who had the possible head start. Under pressure, Bailey threw a pass that was picked off by linebacker Tre Freeman, who returned it 67 yards to the State 12.
Duke scored two plays later and, somehow, went to the half with a one-point lead.
Both coaches agreed the game turned on that play. Perhaps Duke’s season did as well.
“It completely ignited our team,” Diaz said. “Players on the sideline were like, ‘This is us. I remember us.’”
Duke would open the second half with a touchdown and responded to every State score, pulling away for a 45-33 win, the fourth in five games for Duke in the series.
More importantly, the Blue Devils did it by their old blueprint.
“Grinding out a victory,” Diaz said. “We were mentally tough, outworking people, It felt much more like the team we want to be.”
